Return to Fanfiction
by The One Called Demetra
Summary: Aline is once again pulled into the uncreatively titled world of fanfic as civil war breaks out. Will Nikki overcome administrative frustrations? Will her kid sister Jenna ever become a mighty evil overlord? Will D escape telling her origin story? Will Aline ever figure out what's going on? Of course not. Don't be silly.
1. A Prologue Containing Butterflies

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Prologue

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See…

In the tiniest particle of thought are a million billion possibilities. Each one blossoms outward, spreading and changing and growing and in turn producing its own versions of reality. The stars wink in and out as worlds collapse—one dimension over, nothing. On a small and insignificant planet somewhere in the cosmic parking lot of the metaphorical seedy bar and grill, nations rise and fall, brave deeds are done, lives flare into existence and are snuffed out—one world away, the planet burns. The whole of existence wheels and reality continues. All of them.

In the depth and breath and width of all things, infinity.

This is the multiverse.

Watch—

A butterfly. Bright yellow with black markings. Its fragile wings beat steadily, flitting among the sun-dappled trees, unaware of the momentous ripples of change each tiny alteration in the atmosphere brings. But look—a small boy has stepped on it. Gone. Lying in a crippled heap on the ground. And what now?

"Not a damn thing."

What?

"Not a damn thing, I said. I find all of this butterfly nonsense to be highly unlikely and probably made up on the spot."

Oi, who are you? And what are you doing in here? This room is narrators only!

"No one much. Do butterflies even have anything to do with the actual Butterfly Effect?"

Well—yes! It's to do with air currents and typhoons and—

"I always thought it had to do with the shape of the graph."

It doesn't bloody matter! Look here, you can't go barging into prologues all willy-nilly and interrupting a very dynamic introduction. There are _rules _about this sort of—

"Really?"

Yes! The Official Rulebook of the Narrator's Guild! It says, right here as you'll see quite clearly, page seventy-two, paragraph three, clause nineteen: 'under no circumstances is the narrator to be interrupted.'

"Huh. Well I'll be damned. Butterflies are still bloody silly, though…"

_Fine_ then, no butterflies, if you're so bothered by it. Now could I please finish this up?

"Sure, sure. Don't mind me."

_Thank_ you. Now then, where was I? Ah yes.

Between these infinite probabilities, there are those who travel between them. There are those who oversee them. There are those who slide between the worlds like fish through water, not disturbing the quantum flow—

"Hey, what's quantum mean, anyway?"

What? Do you remember how we discussed page seventy-two, paragraph three, clause nineteen?

"Does it mean _anything_? I mean, I hear the word bounced around a lot, but nobody really wants to tell me what is."

Look, quantum is…

Well, look, it's like this…

It's to do with...

"You don't even know, do you?"

Alright, so maybe I don't! Just rest assured it has a lot to do with what I'm talking about, and I'm the narrator here, not you, so just let me say my bit and we can all move on with our lives, _alright_?

"Alright, geez, no need to get so pissy."

Oh, you know what? Sod this. Do the narration yourself if you're so wise and knowledgeable, they don't pay me enough for this. _I'm leaving. _

"…wonder what his problem was. Er, anyway, I guess I should say this. I don't think the other guy's coming back. I didn't even know you could break a metal door like that…ahem. To summarize, a butterfly flaps its wings, and in a completely unrelated incident thousands of miles, sixty years, and several worlds away, a girl named Aline was lying on her bed and staring at the ceiling."

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_A Few Quick Notes, as of April 17__th__, 2011:_

_So this is technically the sequel to 'Welcome to Fanfiction', inasmuch as the characters involved have the same names and the basic idea for the world in which they live and interact are the same. _

_In truth, that's basically it. This is far more an original work; the characters are much more developed, often in ways I didn't expect as I was writing it; some characters who started out as representations of aspects of myself for the purpose of a short and silly parody story decisively became their own people, people who I don't think I even understand completely anymore; something that was short and silly and definitely fanfic-y became a lengthy (for an online story, anyway) war epic concerning the entire world of fiction._

_In short, ignore 'Welcome to Fanfiction'. The world and characterizations pictured there are essentially non-canon to this story. You don't even have to read it, though I'd be thrilled if you did. Just know that Aline previously went to the world in question when she attempted to write a story, and it didn't go very well for her._

_It also got much bigger than originally intended. It was meant to be a oneshot when I first thought of it. The tale grew in the telling, as it were_

_I promised myself I wouldn't post this version until I had the whole thing finished, but I realize that I'm not finishing this nearly as soon as I want to, so I'm putting this up just so I can stop assuring reviewers of the old version how much better the new version is._

_Many, many people have edited, looked over, criticized, praised and picked apart the numerous versions of this still-unfinished story, and I can't possibly list them all. Every one of you has my thanks._

_All that said, if you actually bothered reading this lengthy author's note (if you didn't, please do, come on, it'll take like two minutes), continue on. Or don't, I guess. Whatever you like._


	2. An Introduction Riddled With Plot Holes

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Chapter One

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Once upon a time, a girl named Aline tried to write a story.

And failed spectacularly. This was no fault of her own, and merely due to a lack of any talent whatsoever.

Once upon a time, a girl named Aline tried to understand, if not master, the world of fiction by traveling to the physical plane on which it existed, encountering shippers, fangirls, ornery reviewers, characters at the ends of their wits and some very cruel adorable fuzzballs.

And failed—but, on the bright side, came away from the experience with a valuable life lesson: _never write bad fiction without Navy SEAL-level training._

Once upon a more immediate time, a girl named Aline was lying on her bed and staring at the ceiling.

It wasn't a particularly interesting ceiling. While it did have an irregular pattern of ridges that she'd never really known the purpose of, it was a dull off-white color and generally not that entertaining to look at in any way at all.

It wasn't a particularly interesting girl. She was tall in the same way short people subjected to the rack were tall. Her limbs were of the scrawny barely-pubescent kind. Her hair was blonde, but it was a dingy, dishwater-toned variety of blonde, and her eyes were blue, but they were a watery, uninteresting sort of blue. Her manner was that of a person who wasn't really there, or at least one who would much rather not be. On the whole, she was an unremarkable teenage girl.

And, above all, it wasn't a particularly interesting time. It was the dead of summer, somewhere in the middle of July, a month which has an uncanny ability to make every single day drag on like a Sunday afternoon. Though Aline was too deep in her stupor to take note of the fact, it was Tuesday. Looking back, everything that would happen to her later could probably be blamed on the fact that it was Tuesday.

She wondered if sighing would relieve the boredom.

She sighed.

It didn't.

_Boredom_, she thought, _sucks. _She was not an imaginative child at the best of times, and it being a Tuesday in the middle of July was not helping.

Though boredom was preferable to the alternative, she supposed, of a screaming hell of confusion, stupidity, death threats, pain, more pain, and possible gibbering insanity: namely, fiction. She found herself thinking about it after months of careful mental avoidance of the subject. Her foray into the physical world of all things written, and hence fiction created by both competent professionals and fanatical children with access to pencils, had been brief and regrettable. Aline in no way _minded _adventure. She considered adventure to be, on the whole, very fine indeed. She just didn't want any happening to her, considering all the pain and trauma generally associated with adventuring.

And to think she'd been there on a slow day.

Boredom was alright, really. At least she wasn't being electrocuted by embarrassingly adorable yellow creatures.

(She would later desperately regret thinking this, as while she was not religious, she was sure that any god or gods that were out there had a great love of irony. She was also not entirely clear on the meaning of the word 'irony'.)

Suddenly, in a completely unrelated coincidence which had nothing whatsoever to do with the progression of the plot, a swirling green vortex of inter-dimensional teleportation appeared in her bedroom. It wasn't even an unobtrusive sort of swirling green vortex of inter-dimensional teleportation. As it appeared and expanded out of nowhere, unearthly howls filled the room and strong winds from the nethervoid displaced everything that wasn't nailed down, and the nails on a few things that were.

Aline, naturally, shrieked and fell off the bed.

"Oh my god!" she screamed over the noise, clinging to the bed post in terror. "It's a swirling green vortex of inter-dimensional teleportation!"

"Don't be silly," a voice said. "It's only a plot hole."

Aline whipped her head around wildly, eyes sweeping the room for the source of the sound. "Wha—?"

"A plot hole," the voice repeated, making itself heard over the howls. "You know? Things in the plot that don't make sense? We use them to hitch rides. I believe some call them space-time anomalies."

"I—what?"

"Anyway, Aline, nice to see you again," the voice continued, suddenly manifesting itself into a dreadfully familiar figure. The figure itself – that of a tall and lanky girl in her late teens – was not familiar, but the painful disharmony of colors it wore definitely were, as was the very bright and very fake smile plastered on its face.

The winds and shrieks ceased, and Aline's things crashed to the floor loudly. The room was trashed, but she barely noticed. She was too busy trying to untie her gut from the knot it seemed to have twisted itself into.

Nikki.

In her mind, Nikki and disaster were synonymous, and perhaps she should have started running then and there – if anything, what came next was far worse than a mere cheerful sociopath. But the sudden appearance startled her legs into gelatinous pillars of immobility.

"N-Nikki…um, hi? What's going on?" She was stumbling over the words, her tongue apparently dissatisfied with obeying her commands.

Nikki rubbed the back of her head in a gesture of sheepishness that was silicon-real. "It's kind of a long story. We'll explain later."

"Oh." A beat. "Wait, _we?"_

"Uh huh," Nikki replied brightly. "D and my sister will be here shortly. They got held up. Jen was saying something about an apprenticeship and somewhere in the confusion we were separated."

"Sister?" Aline said faintly, taking in absolutely none of this.

"Half-sister, actually. Our mother had a taste for evil overlords and easy access to them. In the meantime, I am in dire need of your help," Nikki said gravely, surveying the formerly-neat room with her hands on her hips. "Do you have any snacks?"

"Uh." Aline blinked the stupid away, the shock slowly beginning to wear off. "My parents are out shopping, but there's a funnel cake in the fridge if you—"

"Thanks," the older girl cut her off, and disappeared out the doorway.

Aline sat back down on her bed mutely. Tuesday did this. She just knew it. No good ever came of Tuesday.

She barely had time to wrangle her thoughts back into coherency in order to figure out what to do next when the next plot hole appeared. This one was purple, and it seemed the accompanying winds and howls were messing up her room with particularly vitriol. It was somehow less impressive the second time, but no more pleasant.

Aline crouched clutching the steadiest object she could, loose strands of hair lashing at her skin. When the chaos ceased, she cracked open her eyes, already knowing what sight would greet her.

D, an unimposing figure dressed in somber grey, stared at her from behind curtains of stringy black hair with eyes that might have been black or dark brown if the light was brave enough to shine on them. A contraption that a person of her height could not possibly have been able to lift was strapped to her back, a hose with what looked like a spray-bottle squeezer on the end extending from it. "Oh," she said. "It's you." Her tone was impartial, distracted even, but Aline still felt like 'you' was one of the worst things she'd been called in her life.

Aline started to open her mouth to say—well, she definitely would have thought of _something_, when D became the second (and by no means last) person to interrupt her that day. "What a dump," she said. "Don't you ever clean up around here?"

"I—"

"Yeah, uh-huh. Just tell me where the coffee maker is and there won't have to be any unpleasantness." Aline noticed the twitching in D's left eye and the finger hovering over the contraption's trigger (Aline would eventually remember a picture from her history class and identify it as a flamethrower), and decided that was probably a good idea.

"Downstairs, third cabinet on the right," she said. "It's kind of an old model, though, so be careful with it. But seriously, what are you doing here? What about that girl Nikki mentioned? What kind of cruel person would condemn a child to be her sibling? And above all,_ why_ do random people I never want to see again come bursting through the boundaries of time and space into my bedroom to torment—" She cut herself off abruptly as she realized D was not in the room, and probably hadn't been after the first sentence out of Aline's mouth. D was very easy to start accidentally ignoring when she wasn't being the elephant in the living room. A very _small _elephant, but an obtrusive one nonetheless.

She fumed quietly at the snub, mildly surprised at herself even as she did. Anger was not something she was prone to. She had only just begun to wonder at this when she was forced to put it down to D's essential D-ness and leave it at that, as at that moment yet another plot hole appeared. The obligatory dramatic soundtrack started up.

"Oh, shut up," Aline told it crankily, sitting down and resting her head on her knees as her eyes slid shut. For reasons she did not care to fathom, it did, allowing the third voice to be heard.

"Hello?" The voice was light and dripping with sweetness. If marshmallows were sound, the voice would be one.

_This is new, _Aline thought. If this was Nikki's sister, she supposed she ought to get up and offer her condolences, but – _No, _she thought. _No. I'm not getting up. I'm not talking to this new person. Knowing my luck she'll probably end up being a six-eyed, multi-tentacled demon from the eighth dimension. So, no. I'm not going to. I'm going to stay right here curled in my little ball of isolation and let whatever it is go away._

"I'm _so _sorry to intrude," the marshmallow-voice continued. "But is D here?"

"Downstairs." _That's right. Now go away. Don't mind me. _

"Thank you."

_See? See how well that worked out? Ignoring problems really does make them go away. They all lied to you. See how nice this is? No more plot holes. That's right. Calm. Nice. No more nasty portals to disturb your peace. I bet there weren't even any portals. You just imagined them. That's a comforting thought, isn't it? Makes everything much easier, doesn't it?_

Several minutes passed in silence. Aline remained curled up, contentedly deluding herself, a skill she had been refining for the last few months. Just as she had safely convinced herself that she had hallucinated everything, a relatively small explosion sounded from below, rocking the house on its foundations and causing the light fixtures to shudder.

Cautiously, Aline opened her eyes and lifted her head. She heaved a sigh. "Why doesn't that ever work," she muttered as she began the doom-resounding trudge down the stairs.


	3. Plot Exposition!

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Chapter Two

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"I knowyou're impatient and all, but was it really necessary to blow it up?"

"Of course it was. How else was I going to set an example?"

Nikki looked a bit uncomfortable. She'd read that's what people were supposed to look like when their friends blew up their host's kitchen appliances. "But still, it's not nice. It looked like an expensive model, too."

It could have been worse. Nikki sat at the kitchen table drumming her fingers on its surface, clearly distracted, but not enough to pass up on the chance to irritate D about her habits. D herself leaned against the counter, munching on raw coffee beans as the remains of an innocent coffee machine smoldered sadly behind her. In dim light, at a distance, seen by someone bad at reading expressions, she might have looked happy.

"Alright, what's going on?" Aline crossed her arms moodily, glared, and was soundly ignored.

"Well, all the better," D said, shrugging. "It'll teach all the other coffee makers out there that not even the strongest are safe, so they better not malfunction. Or else."

"Seriously, guys, why are you here?"

Nikki suppressed a snort of laughter. "Has anybody ever told you you're utterly insane?"

"…guys?"

D's eyebrows scrunched in thought. "Well…actually, no, they haven't. In all my endless years, I've been called many things, but never insane. Odd, that. Why do you ask?"

"_Just what in the world is going on here?"_

Nikki turned her head, appearing to notice her for the first time. "Mind your punctuation," she reprimanded, setting down her teacup. "And to answer your question, nothing in the world is going on. In the Hub, though, there's a bit of a problem."

"A bit of a problem," Aline deadpanned. "A bit of a problem has caused three harbingers of doom to appear in and destroy my room."

"Ah, yes," Nikki said. "You see, we have a little civil war situation on our hands. Leaders being beheaded and such. Haha. Whole world in political upheaval. Wacky business. Hah. I'm second-in-command, my sister's after me, and D is, well, one of the most hated people in the universe and unlikely to survive any beheading going on. So we came here."

"In thirty-seven universes," D corrected.

"Right, thirty-seven universes, plus honorable mention in quite a few more."

Aline stared. "What, you mean that place was anything besides complete pandemonium?"

"Oh, it was, of course. But it was pandemonium we controlled."

"And the difference is?"

"Obviously," Nikki said patiently, "our kind is much better. But the point being, we had to flee or die. The most convenient place to flee happened to be your bedroom."

Aline pulled up a chair and ran her hands through her hair. "Okay. I can deal with that. Are you going to be leaving soon? Because, I'm sorry, but being around you two generally ends with me being in severe pain. I'd rather avoid that, if you don't mind."

"Understandable," Nikki said in her most convincing tone of understanding. "But, maybe you'd want to know about it anyway. The Hub isn't totally self-contained, and now with all this chaos going on…" She trailed off, letting the implication linger. Something extremely violent and interesting was hovering in the air, tantalizingly available. Aline didn't stand a chance.

Sayings about lethal curiosity only applied to felines, she reasoned.

"Okay. Tell me about this revolution."

Nikki was silent for several moments. The dramatic effect of this was spoiled by the unceasing crunching in the background. She twisted to glare at D. "Do you mind?"

"Yes."

She pinched the bridge of her nose, but pushed onward. "Anyway," she said in the careful words of a rehearsed speech, shooting for the best Haunted Storyteller voice she could, given the background noise and unhelpful cheery lighting of Aline's kitchen. "I don't know all of it. In the confusion, I could only pick up the general shape of it. It looks like the badfic authors have rebelled."

"Badfic authors?"

"Slang term for the unsavory part of the unprofessional crowd. Fanatical shippers, wish-fulfillment junkies, rabid fangirls, weeaboos and the like. Tolerated because Marie doesn't care enough to do anything about them—she runs the place, technically, but doesn't really do anything besides welcome new denizens and look cynical. The lady with the clipboard, remember? But we got along in the past, carrying on the normal insanity. Shippers raided each other's settlements, keeping their own populations in check. Fangirls were routinely sedated when the wilder ones got out of control. Nobody, not even crazy people, ever wanted to get close to weeaboo—and trust me, they aren't hard to spot—so that was okay. And sure, there's bitterness from both sides, but what would life be without some good old fashioned resentment and general hatred?"

"Pleasant and tolerable?" Aline said.

Nikki laughed at that, almost genuinely. "Good one! Moving on. I don't know what brought it on. Maybe it was a gradual increase of tension that finally snapped. I didn't notice any tension, but maybe it was Ninja Tension. It still caught us by surprise."

Aline suddenly remembered beheadings being mentioned and asked, "So what happened to Marie?"

The other girl's eyes were downcast. "She's gone."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Aline said hurriedly.

"Not dead," Nikki said, her chin jerking upwards. "I'm sure she's not dead. There would have been a public execution. They're probably using her as a hostage. Or maybe she escaped to some other world. I don't know. But she can't be dead. It isn't like her to do things like dying." Aline was taken aback by the tone of her voice, which was the closest to genuineness she'd ever hear her come.

"But how on earth did you lose an entire dimension to a group of children?" Aline said. "I was there once. Most of them weren't out of their teens, if even that! And they seemed perfectly happy to go around terrorizing innocent new authors without any of the need for rebellion," she added.

"I don't think you realize the magnitude of the force they can harness," Nikki said. "We see them as one collective of unpleasantness - because, frankly, they're extremely irritating and as far as I'm concerned, irritating people shouldn't exist – but that's not true. The particularly mindless type of fangirl, the kind that's held together by spit and hormones, will stampede in herds, but that's kind of like a moving, amorphous blob of lust. Shippers, forget it. The individual tribes, or ships, hate each other, and anything less than total loyalty to the ship gets them cast out. Weeaboos…well, you know that girl at school who's prone to squealing, always brings pocky to lunch, and can't utter a sentence without saying 'kawaii'?"

Aline did, though she didn't know how Nikki knew about her. "I didn't," Nikki replied on inquiry. "There's one in every school. It's like a law of the universe. Scatterbrained dipwads, the lot of them," she pronounced with finality. "It'd be like getting a kid with severe ADHD to sit still for a whole day without moving or speaking. And of course there's the plain old badfic authors. Specifically, people who can't write and can't be civil about it. They're all out for themselves and themselves alone. You put them in a room together and all you'd get is a bunch of passive-aggressive comments and brewing resentment. Collectively, that's an awful lot of sheer passion and devotion, a lot of fanaticism and loyalty and just good old fashioned illness in the head. You get them all organized and not killing each other, you have a lot of power there. And there's a _fuckton _of them. I have no idea how they got that way, but I suspect it involved bribery, witchcraft, or both. So now you see? We're exiled, hunted, and divided. We have no real assets and no plan beyond the very vague. There's only a few of us in one place while the enemy is an unheard-of organized force of reckoning. In other words, we're—"

"Fucked in the ass with a jackhammer," D offered.

"Yeah, pretty much."

Aline digested all of this. After a while, she said, "Yep, the situation sound pretty hopeless. Good luck with that."

"Well, we're not totally doomed," Nikki said indignantly. "There's still the canons."

Aline shuddered involuntarily. If anything, her experience with them had been worse than with Nikki's undesirables.

"The canons would even the odds in this," Nikki continued, darkly eager. "There's a veritable fuckton of _them, _too, seeing as humanity has been telling stories since forever, and they've got a good reason to hate the opposition. They've been tormented by them for several millennia, after all. They could unite against the enemy just fine. Not to mention that most canons are remarkable. Geniuses. Superheroes. Wizards. The only problem is, well, getting through enemy territory to actually _find_ them. That's the current plan. Under a proper leader, it'd be no problem." Nikki's face broke into a wide, confident smile, which Aline suspected was as real as most of her smiles, but it didn't exist long before fading. "There's one thing that worries me though, seeing as canons are extremely susceptible to it…"

"And what's that?" No hesitation this time. Aline's fate was sealed.

Nikki gnawed her lip. "The rebels have started using their most lethal weapons. It's despicable, but effective. I would have approved if they weren't being used against us."

Aline's eyes were wide and spellbound. "What are they?" she asked.

The older girl glanced around apprehensively, as if just speaking the word would bring pain, misery, death, disease, mass killings, and Disney musicals. Cupping a hand around her mouth, she whispered, "Clichés."

Aline blinked once.

Twice.

"And?" she said.

"That's it," Nikki said. "Clichés are kind of like bombs. You toss one, and anyone in its range is immediately affected by the cliché in question. Carefully chosen clichés are devastating. It takes a special kind of person to stoop to the use of the nastier ones, and most of them are on their side. Here, read this." Fishing in her endless pockets, she drew out a small, thick volume and slid it across the table.

"'Seventy-Four Creative Ways to Skin a Cat?"

"Oh, sorry. _This_ is the right one."

"'The Cliché Compendium?"

"That's the one. It's your go-to guide for everything, including its namesake."

Aline opened the book and flipped through it. It was bound in black leather, the title embossed in gold on the cover. The pages were thin, the print was small, and the whole book was maybe four inches thick. The title page read, '_The Cliché Compendium (dealphabetized): Your go-to guide for recognizing, avoiding, and neutralizing clichés, from the harmless annoyances to the great behemoths of bad writing.' _Apparently this was the extended edition.Aline flipped through it and landed on a page titled 'Heartwarming Christmas Oneshots'. It read, '_A sickeningly sweet dollop of fluff that often causes vomiting, nausea, and feelings of joy and goodness toward all mankind. Their power source comes from marshmallows and eggnog. Counteract with hearty doses of cynicism.'_

There were also several examples, more cures and their level of effectiveness, and outside references. The page after that had an entry on the Yaoi Confession: '_An unbelievable, unrealistic, voyeuristic explosion of failure and boylove, instigated by fangirls needing something to fap to. When two male characters, regardless of either of their established sexual orientations, species, metaphysical composition, etc., suddenly announce their undying love for each other after several disgusting chapters of shy blushing and ineffective sexual tension. Be ready to be accused of homophobia before proceeding.'_

A rather odd entry described the Reality Hammer. '_A fabled artifact, said to be wielded by the god Dilucidus, which shatters all illusions. This hammer is what signals the end of the golden age when one's editor tactfully informs one that, actually, having one's characters be suddenly saved from their inescapable predicament by a freak tornado was quite unlikely. This hammer is what every history teacher in a long line of history teachers has had to solemnly wield when correcting students that no, the pyramids weren't built by aliens and the Egyptians didn't use telekinesis. This hammer is what slams down upon the head of a contented daydreamer when she suddenly realizes that no daydream can last forever. Naturally, there is great debate over whether it actually exists, where it is now, how it was lost, and so forth. There is far less debate over whether or not the sort of people who debate the existence of such a silly thing like a Reality Hammer need to go outside and make some friends.'_

"Read up," Nikki said brightly. "You'll need it later if you want to survive."

The book suddenly dropped to the table with a dull thump. "Oh, no," Aline said with as much finality as she could muster. "I thought I already made it clear I'm not getting mixed up in this again. Just leave me to my boredom and go back to your time-space thingy, okay?" In desperation, she tried the puppy dog eyes and succeeded in absolutely nothing besides making D snicker.

"Ah," said Nikki. "There's the thing. You don't have a choice."

Aline stood up abruptly and backed into a corner—admittedly not exactly the best escape route. "Why?" she said, a note of blind panic creeping into her voice.

"Because the plot says so," Nikki informed her, producing a script from somewhere and jabbing it with her neon-painted pointer finger. "See?" Inside, she was frowning. Apparently Aline's fear of interesting things was greater than her love of them. She would have to remember this later on.

"I thought you said it was understandable!" Aline shrieked.

"I lied," Nikki said.

"I'm not going!"

"Yes you are. We need an underdog and you're the prime candidate."

"I don't _want _to be an underdog!"

"Well, too bad!"

"SHUT UP!" Both girls looked around to face D. D rarely yelled. It wasn't her style. D yelling was usually enough to stun people into silence. "Shut up, both of you! You're acting like children."

"But we are—" Aline began to mutter.

"I said shut up!" D repeated. "I don't need another goddamn headache. First this war business going on, whatever that's all about. People stampeding all over the place, calling for revolution, shouting about beheadings, causing all this ruckus. Then_ this _fine specimen of humanity, who looks like a unicorn threw up on her I might add, drags me out of my nice, comfy corner for some stupid reason—"

Nikki snorted. "You know full well that if they found you, you would have been executed, probably accompanied by feasting and celebration. I expect the only reasons you lived five minutes into it is your remarkable resemblance to an unattractive wall."

"Exactly! I would have been fine! Now I'm stuck here with this random _groupie _I seem to have picked up with a colorblind megalomaniac and a clueless idiot who has absolutely no buyer's discretion when it comes to coffee makers!"

Hearing them talk, you never would have guessed that they had been best friends for nearly a decade.

After a moment, "Yeah, what's up with that girl anyway?" Aline asked, then frowned. "Hey, was I the clueless idiot in that last sentence?"

D scowled, glaring at no one in particular. "Her name is Whatsherface. Whatsyourface, you may leave your corner. Get over here and introduce yourself."

Nikki pouted slightly. _She _should be the one bossing her little sister around. Why were life's little pleasure's always denied her?

The apparent owner of the marshmallow-voice entered the kitchen bouncily. "Hi!" she said brightly in the slightly anxious tones of the eager-to-please. "Nice to meet you all!"

The girl could not have possibly fit her voice any better. She was waifish and small, maybe twelve years old, dressed in a bright yellow sundress and sandals. Her whole manner suggested that at any moment, songbirds would fly through the window and drop a daisy chain on her head as heavenly light shined straight through the roof and illuminated her sweet dimpled smile and doe eyes.

"I'm Jenna!" she chirped. "One day, I'm going to destroy you and all you hold dear. Then I'll take over the world and reign as the supreme ruler of the universe for a thousand years of darkness and despair. For a millennia, there will be no light or hope for humanity, as they will all be enslaved and worked to death. I'm sure we'll all be great friends!"

She clapped her hands together and beamed, twirling happily.

"Hrk," said Aline.

D remained unimpressed. "Amateur," she said. "No style at all. And she wants me to train her? Do I look like a miracle worker? Look here, Julia or Janice or whatever your name was, evil overlord is a fine profession, but you aren't getting anywhere with announcing your malevolent intentions. Incongruity will only get you so far."

"Oh, please!" Jenna clasped her hands together humbly. "I've heard so much about you! Is it true that you're the most hated person in thirty-seven universes? And you must know so many famous Lords of Evil! I'd give anything to learn from you!"

"Plus honorable mention in many others," D insisted, but she was looking thoughtful. "And yes, I suppose I do know my fair share of evil overlords. In fact, go ask one of them. I believe Zurg has an opening. For the last time, I'm not who you want, kid, now bugger off."

Nikki decided that being patient never got anybody anywhere. She donned her Serious Eyebrows, one of which was blue and pierced. "Could everybody kindly shut their traps and listen to me?" she snarled, standing up and rattling the table loudly. "I don't have time for this silliness. The dimension I'm responsible for is being taken over by a bunch of _creatures _with barely two brain cells to rub together. D, this is our temporary base until we find the canons. You're on guard duty. Stay here in case anybody else shows up."

"Aye-aye, captain." Somewhere in the world, a sarcasm meter exploded.

"But this is _my _house!" Aline began to protest, and was disregarded entirely once again.

"Jenna, start working on those weapons of mass destruction you were chattering so excitedly about on the way here."

"Okay!"

"Right then. Aline's coming with me as designated underdog to find the canons. This is recon, after which we can start planning a counterattack."

"Leave me out of this! I don't _want _any counterattacks! Who said anything about counterattacks?"

"I just did," Nikki said reasonably and grabbed her arm at the precise moment another plot hole opened in the kitchen. This one was a nasty shade of orange. "And that would be our ride," she quipped, stepping into it and dragging Aline with her.

"LET ME GO, OR I'LL—"

But the profanity that would have followed was lost as both girls disappeared into another dimension, leaving only a sense of pervading fury behind.

D leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed her arms, hmphing. She was not at all content with her situation and was anxious to let the world know this with as much posturing as possible. Jenna continued to smile blithely and rock back and forth on her heels.

"So…" D began.

"Yes!" Jenna said, suddenly rapt with attention.

D considered the benefits of having a homicidal maniac indebted to her. She also considered the frequency of old masters dying at the hands of their murderous students. Finally, she considered her chances of getting any good caffeine in the near future without a lackey to get it for her.

"Do you know how to make good Turkish coffee?" she inquired.

"…yes?"

"Good. Go make some, and then you'll have your first lesson."


	4. A Highly Amusing Comedic Chase Scene

0000

Chapter Three

0000

The world of fiction, known more commonly as the Hub, was…different.

Of course, all worlds were different. Some less so than others, but all different. If the endless dice rolls of existence were parallel, then the Hub would have been the transversal. But the worlds twist and intertwine, sometimes merging only to separate again, zigzagging and clashing everywhere, linked in some inexpressible way. They invert on themselves, resulting in temporal anomalies usually explained by scientists as "just marsh gas", loop around, causing history to repeat and billions of people to brush off that odd sense of wrongness as just a spot of déjà vu, slow down and speed up depending on if the subject in question is either sitting through a meeting concerning the cabbage production of the last quarter or on a date with someone nice. The innumerable worlds are bound together, and around them, somehow touching all and none of them, the Hub.

It has always been. Its exact nature is unknown, but strange things happen in the Hub. Things slip through. Rifts in reality can be opened to and from it at will. Its landscape is endlessly shifting, in such a manner that can only be predicted through advanced narrative physics, or occasionally common sense. What is known, however, is that it was originally home to the creative marvels of imagination, and that sheer force of its potential creative energy began to attract the slightly realer denizens of the other worlds when the a Greek scribe first sat down and thought, _That Homer, he wrote a good epic, I ought to add on to it!_

This is the Hub, and if you have read about it, you will find it here.

"Still sounds like a load of nonsense to me…"

Oh, _shut up._

Aline arrived in the Hub with no intention of recognizing the magnitude of the fact.

"—WITH A TEN FOOT POLE!" she concluded, fists balled in rage. Nikki clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Shh," she hissed, glancing around nervously. "We're in enemy territory and the Canon Retreat Chamber is still a way away from here, and I'd prefer we die sooner rather than later if that's alright with you."

Having thought her response through with unusual speed and eloquence, Aline said "Mmfrrmmmfl." Nikki removed the hand.

Aline sulked. As a teenager, she felt perfectly within her rights to do so. Hunching her back and crossing her arms, she looked around, though she didn't need to take in the full variety of the landscape. She was in the same blank white space as the last time—infinity contained in finite space. The difference was that it was completely deserted. No chattering preteen girls. No loud shrieks. No squeals. Nothing except the occasional squeak of Nikki's sneakers as she pivoted, looking for something in a sea of nothing.

The silence rolled over her in waves.

Aline shivered.

"You know, this doesn't look much like a world torn in brutal civil war," she commented. "I expected some torn up mounds of dirt, crater bombs, shouting, running soldiers—at least _something."_

"Physics don't work the same way here," Nikki replied quietly, shielding her eyes from an imaginary sun. "Things aren't permanent. They occur, and people remember them, but you'd have a time proving they actually happened. Reality is thin here."

Aline thought about this. "Does that even mean anything?"

Nikki shrugged. "If you want it to."

The oppressive silence reigned for several minutes. Just as it was getting comfortably settled in, it was broken when Nikki said, "It's this way. Come on." With that, she set off decisively from their little island of nothing toward another, presumably somehow superior stretch of nothing. Aline hung her head resignedly and followed her. You can't fight fate, she reasoned. Or Tuesday.

"If we're lucky," the older girl whispered. "They won't notice we're here and we can get to the Chamber without incident. I don't think they're expecting us, so we have a chance."

"And if we're unlucky?" Aline whispered back.

"Well," Nikki considered, chewing her lip. "That would depend on the level of un-luck. If we're only mildly unlucky, we'll have to return to your dimension and try again. I've been there a few times, so it's easier to open plot holes to it. If we're very unlucky, we run into the horde, be unable to lose them and unable to plot hole our way out of trouble, and eventually be forced to hide in the Canon Retreat Chamber lest we get mobbed, which would reveal its secret location and cause all the canons currently hiding there to be evacuated into a different dimension, in this case yours for the sake of convenience, which would cause mass chaos across the multiverse—people aren't really supposed to go universe-hopping, not in those numbers."

"Or we could just die," Aline pointed out with a touch of bitter accusation that made a slight _whoosh _sound as it flew over Nikki's head.

"Nah," said Nikki dismissively. "We won't die. Our author is becoming attached to us."

Aline blinked and looked at Nikki in a particular expression of fearful incomprehension that she spent an increasingly large chunk of her life wearing. "What do you mean, our auth—?"

At that point, however, she was cut off by a sound that even the hardiest of men feared. The sound evoked a creeping tingling at the base of the spine, which then flowed up and out into the chest until it emerged as blind, animalistic panic, usually in the form of a scream or in some unfortunate cases, a gurgling choke. It was a sound that Nikki had once spent a week of her specialized training learning to discern and classify. It was a sound that a technician in Lab 19 had spent several months and half his budget developing sufficiently strong earplugs for.

It was the piercing keen of the fangirl.

More specifically, it was a _Fangirlius obsessoris. _If Aline had known that the Cliché Compendium was in her jacket pocket and not lying abandoned on the kitchen table, and if she had not been too busy wondering why she suddenly had a deep, primal fear building in her chest, she might have found out what it had to say on the topic of the _Fangirlius obsessoris, _which was this: '_A particularly nasty, sporadic and mercifully short-lived breed of fangirl, characterized by their utter lack of inhibitions and a complete disregard for self-preservation. They have an ability to frenzy ten times quicker and stronger than more common breeds, which has a singular upside of being very easy to control with their targets of obsession. Where most fangirls retain at least some vestiges of humanity, _obsessoris_ is all but completely mindless.'_

Nikki sighed.

"Aline," she said calmly. "Listen very carefully. We are being followed by fangirls. Judging by the intensity of the pain in my eardrums, they can't be more than a mile off. If they catch us, we will in all likelihood be torn apart."

"You mean…like zombies?"

Nikki considered for a moment. "Yes, exactly like zombies, come to think of it. Point being, we can't hope to outfight them, and outrunning them doesn't seem like a hopeful option, either."

"Oh. They're the running kind of zombies."

"Exactly. Which is why we need a brilliant plan that will save us both from certain doom."

Aline was painfully aware that Nikki was looking at her expectantly. "What?"

"Well, like I said, you're the underdog. At this point, the underdog saves the day, proving themselves to be capable individuals worthy of respect. Why else would I bring you along?"

Several seconds passed in silence. Aline looked around helplessly, panic blooming in her chest and threatening to overwhelm her as the claws-on-blackboard squeals grew louder and louder.

Suddenly, "I've got it!"

"Great! What is it?"

"We walk through this door," she said, pointing a stark, utilitarian door to her right, which had not been there a second ago. Nikki noted it breezily, long past the point of being surprised at things popping into existence from nothing. Besides, she recognized it—it was the back entrance to the Canon Retreat Chamber. Normally, she used it by entering a sequence on the number pad, speaking the ancient words of Arachmatuton, invoking the rite of the Ancient Ones and turning the doorknob. Unfortunately, the keypad was smashed. Buttons were missing and surges of electricity sparked along it.

She tried Plan B: smacking it. When this had no effect, she tried jiggling it, fiddling with some of the wires sticking out, and asking it very nicely to start working. The door remained closed.

"…bugger. Well, have you got any other brilliant plans?" The squeals were louder now; Nikki estimated they would be upon them within minutes, and not very many of them, either.

"Um…" Aline looked around, vaguely hoping that some other handy means of escape would spontaneously materialize. "Maybe I could try to talk to them?" she said meekly.

Nikki treated her to her flattest look of exasperation. "If you're not going to take this seriously, then we're going to die horribly and it'll be all your fault."

"Okay, okay! Let me try this. I saw it on TV once."

Nikki tried to look encouraging. She failed.

Aline positioned herself directly in front of the door. She tapped it in several places, tested the air for nonexistent wind, and stared at it for several moments.

She kicked it. The door ignored this and continued standing there resolutely. She kicked it again, slightly more forcefully. The door, rather perturbed, continued to stand there and ignore her.

Nikki coughed politely and looked away, acutely aware of the increasing volume of the squeals.

Another kick. Insofar as the door had a face with which to express things, it glared.

With a grunt, Aline kicked it another several more times in quick succession.

_Kick._

Again with the kicking, the door thought.

_Kick._

Whatever happened to respecting doors, the door thought.

_Kick._

In my day, doors were revered, the door thought.

_Kick._

Oh, if Mother could see me now, she'd laugh, the door thought. Oh, Bill, you useless thing, I told you not to go into this business and now look at you, she'd say.

_Kick_

Why do I even bother, the door thought.

_Kick._

The door, now entirely fed up with this entire business, decided that banging open and nearly flying off its hinges would be the best course of action, which it promptly did. It hung there, creaking in indignation as it swung pathetically back and forth.

"You just nearly destroyed a door by kicking it," Nikki said, gazing wanly at the strained hinges. She could have sworn a minute ago it didn't _have_ any hinges—what sort of door that opened by number pad had hinges?

"Yep. Call it a hunch," Aline said proudly.

"Of course," Nikki realized. "You said you saw it on TV. That would make sense."

Aline beamed, the unfamiliar feeling of usefulness blossoming in her chest. Suddenly, she frowned. "Hey, why couldn't we have just used a plot hole? I mean, it's—"

Another fangirl squeal cut her off, closer than ever now. "And now," Nikki said tightly, "we run." Aline caught her first glimpse of a truly far-gone fangirl just before they made it in. She—it—was visible only for a moment before the door slammed shut, but the image seemed to imprint in her memory like a cattle brand. The wild, knotted hair…the torn clothing…the feral snarl, the pointed predator's teeth…most of all the eyes, more beast ruled by instincts than actually human, blazing with rage and concentrated obsession…no, she wasn't forgetting that in a hurry.

It was a small space, made even smaller by the abundance of heavy objects crowded in it. There was a shiny grand piano in one corner, with spiders competing for real estate in its crevices. Quite a few encyclopedias were strewn on the floor, along with bewildering bags of sand and just plain old rocks. Aline discovered their purpose as Nikki began frantically dragging them to the door.

This struck Aline as somewhat strange, seeing as there was another perfectly good door to run through on the opposite wall. "Uh," she began.

"Seventh law of comedic chase scenes," Nikki said without looking up.

A pile of cinderblocks were topped by a Chesterfield sofa (which Aline had been sitting on), followed by a combination safe (which Aline narrowly avoided being crushed by), and then with the ebony grand piano (which Aline thought was bordering on the absurd side, but shrieked and dived away from when it came her way nonetheless). It occurred to her that there was no possibly way Nikki could manage to lift a grand piano, no matter how much wiry muscle she was hiding. A voice, sounding irritatingly like D's, informed her of the ninth law of comedic chase scenes.

At the thought of D, a small pit of dread materialized in her stomach. D and the girl-shaped essence of evil were alone in her house. She was suddenly imagining her neighborhood annihilated—houses nothing but smoking wreckage, rivers of fire in the streets, the tormented screams of the unlucky living piercing the air—

_Stop that, _Aline told herself. She was being ridiculous. It's not like they would actually do that. It was illogical and unhelpful. Besides, where would they get the lava? It was silly.

Wasn't it?

0000

When Nikki had left D and Jenna to their own devices, she had either not counted on or not cared about the fact that one of them was deeply disillusioned and easily bored, and the other was her psychopathic admirer. Barely a minute had passed before D forgot about whatever it was she was told to do and wandered to the living room to watch TV. She had flicked through only a few channels, which involved golf, Oprah Winfrey, and people in high school singing, before she could feel the detrimental effect on her brain cells and had to turn it off. At that point, Jenna brought her coffee, which she had to drink quickly to avoid the mug disintegrating in her hands.

"So," D said, kicking aside the empty former mug. "You want to learn from me."

Jenna nodded so vigorously D was mildly impressed that her head was still attached to her neck when she finally stopped.

"Well, I don't know much about straightforward evil personally, but there are some things I guess I could show you."

"Oh my gosh! I'm so excited! Thank you! _Thank you!" _Jenna shrieked. "What are we going to do first? Intimidation tactics? Minion acquisition? General malevolence?"

D thought about it. She was in a universe that was not hers, annoyed at having been disturbed, and therefore keen on taking out her annoyance on the environment she was in that was not her corner. "I've got a better idea," she said, snatching car keys off the coffee table as she got up.

"Oooh! What is it?"

D's face did not move from its usual expression of bored contempt, but somehow she gave off a sense of grinning maniacally anyway. "You'll see. First we're going to the hardware store."

0000

It's not like they were going to blow up the neighborhood, Aline thought. It wouldn't be practical. It'd attract all kinds of attention—_inconvenient _attention. They wouldn't do that. D might destroy some more of her kitchen appliances, but that was probably it.

Probably.

0000

"Um." Jenna bit her lip nervously. "I'm sure you know best, but are you _sure _this is the best first lesson? I mean…what about domination plans? Torture techniques? The practicality of unstoppable superweapons?"

"Oi," D barked. "I'm the wise old mentor here. I bet you wouldn't be doubting me if I had a beard and a long grey cloak." She was leaning on Aline's brother's slightly wrecked car. She'd learned to drive some decades ago and had managed to swerve it to one of the less legal suppliers and back without maiming too many people. She still wasn't very good at parallel parking, though.

"You're right," Jenna sighed. "Sorry."

"A_hem?_"

"You are utterly correct, O High Empress D, Mistress of the Subtle Arts. Please forgive my impudence lest I suffer the fate of a thousand flattened insects," Jenna recited, hands clasped behind her back.

"Thank you." It wasn't often that D got her ego fed, and so she was going to milk the moments she had for all they were worth.

Jenna placed the last charge, syncing it and checking her watch. She backed up to where D was standing at the edge of the cul-de-sac. D shoved a pair of goggles into her hands, slipping on her own. "Put these on."

"To protect our eyes?"

"No, this is a controlled blast. These are just to look cool."

Jenna's forehead furrowed. "Um, controlled blast? Is that physically possible at this range?"

"I think you'll find," D said sagely, "that the laws of physics are really just a bunch of upstarts that need a firm guiding hand to tell them what's what and to not try any funny business."

Jenna had grown up in the Hub, and was reasonably familiar with the laws of narrative physics and how they functioned in her own dimension, but she nonetheless spotted the flaw in the scenario. "But this is the other world. The real one. This could actually kill us."

"No, it's not."

"But—but we went through the plot hole and everything, and—"

"It isn't," D said. "It's only a representation of the real world. The _real_ real world is on the other side. You know. The _other _other side. The fourth side. It's all a matter of perspective. There are countless worlds, and a world which we believe we are subject to, we are subject to its rules; but a world that we recognize for what it is, a hollow facsimile of true reality_, that_ is ours to manipulate to the whims of our blackened hearts." The disconcerting bout of metaphysics ended. "But all of that is highly complex narrative physics, and you're only what, six years old? I'm an anthropomorphic personification; I know these things, so just accept it and press the big damn red button."

Jenna was ten. She by no means was planning on mentioning this, and so instead did as she was bid.

The resultant blast was glorious. The first charge detonated in the kitchen, blowing out the glass in the sliding door. The timed charges in the living and dining rooms went next, destroying some vital supports in the walls and causing most of the game room on the second floor to collapse. The last to go were the bedrooms, and then the final charge on the roof, the remains of which caved inward in short order. Orange flames were everywhere, the blast blowing back their hair dramatically in a questionably plausible manner, every scrap of shrapnel missing them by some curious error in the source code of the universe.

The pair observed.

D sipped her coffee and enjoyed the feeling of the roof of her mouth disintegrating. She imagined the 1812 Overture playing in the background, and was unsurprised to find that it was. Most people wouldn't hear it, or assume it was just their imagination, but that was because most people were idiots. In a sense, they hadn't left the Hub. The rules still applied, though limitedly. D allowed herself a small, brief smile that failed at making her look any more cheerful. D smiling was an event that had last occurred in the 1920s, though the accounts of it are questionable, seeing as they came from a man who slept in a cardboard box and had been sober twice in five years.

"So…" Jenna started as the prize-winning lawn began to blacken. "Why did we blow it up?"

"If you have to ask, then clearly you have learned nothing."

Jenna wondered if this was supposed to be a lesson in how information could be obtained from any source and how it was important to keep experimenting, and eventually decided that it wasn't.

Sensing her discontent, D said exasperatedly, "Because explosions make any situation better, and knowing how to cause one will make your long and dull career as an evil overlord more entertaining, how does that suit you?"

"Perfectly!" Jenna nearly split her head in half with her smile.

"You learn quickly," D said, nodding. "So, do you remember what we were supposed to do while those two schlubs try to do recon?"

Jenna shook her head.

"Me neither. Let's go find the canons before those two get themselves killed. You can find an evil overlord to torment, and I can find some entertainment..."

0000

Next door, one Margaret Finklestein looked up from her knitting and gazed out the window.

For a moment, she examined the burning wreckage and took note of the figures disappearing into what seemed to be a rift in reality, glowing with otherworldly forces. The swirling purple vortex hung in the empty air for a moment, and then shrunk to nothing, leaving a nice colonial house in flaming ruin. With a loud crash, the rest of the roof caved in, instigating the bachelor in the house next to it to shout for them to keep it down, he was trying to watch TV. After a few minutes had passed, her beady eyes returned to the steady clicking of the knitting needles.

She tsked. Strange folk, those von Niermands. She'd always said so, but did her crotchety old oaf of a husband ever listen? Called her a gossip, he did. Called her nosy, he did. Told her to mind her own business, he did.

_Well._ She peered down her hawklike nose over her half-moon glasses. Now he'd know better, now wouldn't he?

What sort of shifty folk invited people in trench coats to their homes? No one decent, that's who. She'd always said so.


	5. The Plot Gets Underway

**OLD READERS: Please read the author's note at the beginning of the prologue.**

**NEW READERS: Hey. I'm assuming you already read that author's note. So. What's up? Enjoying the fic? Good, good. Read on!**

0000

Chapter Four

0000

Nikki continued piling Advanced Physics books on the growing blockage—most of them with the margins scribbled in, the title scratched out and the author's photo magic markered. Physics was like the Liberal Arts degree of the Hub, because it had about as much bearing on anything important. Nikki paused to glance at her watch, which informed her that it was seventy minutes past pancake. A couple more minutes of cartoonish door-blocking should suffice, she reckoned. She'd better get out the industrial strength stuff, though, just to be sure…

Aline took the entirely less useful action of sinking to her knees and taking deep breaths. This didn't help in the slightest, which annoyed her, because as far she knew any kind of stress could easily be dealt with by breathing deeply. Now that the immediate danger had more or less passed, though the shrieking and pounding on the door was not reinforcing this idea, the realization that she was embroiled in this world of fiction once again was setting in. And now this was a war, and she was a soldier, a meat shield to be thrown at a problem until it went away.

Aline didn't think it was possible to take revenge on a day of the week, but oh, if she ever got out of this, Tuesday was going to _pay. _

Her fingers brushed her jacket pocket. It felt fuller than usual. Stunned, but stunned in an 'oh look yet another thing to be stunned at' way, Aline pulled out the Cliché Compendium. She blinked at it.

"Didn't I leave this on the kitchen table?" she asked the room at large. Her voice was shaking, but not much. Thoughts of revenge on Tuesday were helping.

Nikki lifted a welder and mask from a rack on the wall. "Mm."

"Alrighty then. You do that."

Aline pulled her jacket tighter around her shoulders. Usually when under siege (though the things she was used to being under siege from were family members and history exams, which were, as she was just now realizing, far less terrifying than a zombie horde or Jenna), she fled from reality. Unfortunately, she was no longer strictly _in _reality, and the only thing left to flee to was a guidebook.

But it was something.

Page 421 had an entry on the Super Best Friends Club. _'An amalgamation of several seemingly completely random (yet popular) characters all crammed together in a large house doing fun, crazy, and often fluffy things. Jawdroppingly common in fanfiction for very serious works. Also known as Cullen House Syndrome. Difficult to destroy due to sheer popularity, but perseverance, tact, and possibly an army of ninjas should be sufficient.' _

Nikki was now welding the door shut. Aline shifted to avoid the sparks.

She came to a page about critics. Still stinging from the first remark about her writing all those months ago, whatever she liked to tell herself, she was almost unaware of the malicious smirk forming on her lips, which disintegrated in short order as she found the entry to be nothing but a list of references.

_Critic: See:_

_Troll_

_Troll (literal)_

_Angry Douchebag_

_Fact (truth, reality, etc.)_

_Come on, don't kid yourself, you know they were right._

Who writes this crap, anyway? she thought, annoyed, and realized she actually wanted to know. The front cover simply had the title and nothing else besides a few gold-leafed designs around the edges. Nothing on the few opening pages, either. After a moment's searching, she found something: in small print on the last page before the back cover, a name: Deborah Rutherford. Under it, three blacked out and unreadable words. She murmured the name aloud. "Huh. Who's that, d'you think?"

Nikki grunted. She had now produced miniature cement mixer from somewhere and was haphazardly pouring cement over her door-obstructing structure.

"Okay then."

Aline absentmindedly flicked through the pages, coming to a stop at a long bibliography of biology and anatomy books which were under the subtitle 'Mpreg'. Huh, she thought. I wonder what that is…

Nikki had straightened up and tossed away the empty cement mixer, examining her handiwork when the shriek filled the room, at which point she nearly landed face first into the still-drying cement. For one wild moment, she thought the laws of physics had won over the laws of narrative convention after all, the fangirls had defeated the barrier and were going to break in, but then realized that the scream had come from Aline. "What? What? Did you have some kind of horrible epiphany about the futility of life or something?" Nikki asked roughly. Sympathy was not her strong suit and having the ever-loving bejeezus scared out of her was not among her hobbies.

The girl shuddered and mutely shook her head. Horrified tears were shimmering in her eyes.

"Residual shock of almost dying suddenly hit you?"

Another shudder, another shake.

"Lost the Game?"

A personal note to remember to complain about that later, another shake.

"Found out some horrible secret that you wish you could forget at any price?"

A nod. Nikki's forehead furrowed. She looked between the abandoned copy of the Cliché Compendium on the floor, then at Aline, then back again. "Ah," she said conclusively. "I see. You read the one about Mpreg."

A slightly chocked sob. "But why would people _do_ that?" Aline moaned. "It had _pictures!"_

"I'll tell you when you're older," Nikki said, the mild and unusual bout of concern for Aline now gone. She didn't know for how long the barrier could hold off the horde, but according to narrative convention, at least enough to get the canons out to somewhere else, where they could regroup and plan a counterattack. "Come on, we need to get moving before they break through." Silence from the wide-eyed and shuddering Aline.

"You know? To avoid the messy death we ran in here to avoid?"

Now no longer silence—instead, unintelligible muttering.

"Fine then. See if I care." Nikki started for the door that led to the main chambers beyond, then realized that it wasn't going to work and came back. She sighed and grabbed Aline by the arm, dragging her none-too-gently to the door.

Now, at least, we're getting somewhere, Nikki thought, the feeling of contentment that came with returning to a place closer to home than anything else blossoming in her chest. Now we can start kicking some ass.

She paused. Alright, at least kicking a few shins. At least.

She pushed open the door.

Three seconds later, Aline's dead weight hit the stone floor with a dull thud as Nikki tried to process the scene before her.

She swore. She swore again. She swore mildly enough to print under a PG-13 rating: "Oh…god _damn _it_."_

Empty.

How could it be empty?

Impossible. It had to be an illusion. How many canons could conjure illusions? Plenty! Somebody had thought to use one, banking on the enemy's minimal brain capacity. Of course. That was the obvious answer. All she had to do was walk forward and it would be broken.

She did so. Nothing happened.

Alright, so it was a very clever illusion. That didn't mean anything. Nothing at all.

"Guys! It's me! Nikki! You know, next in the line of caretakers? Stop…doing whatever it is you're doing, we've got a war to fight!"

The silence ignored her rather ostentatiously.

She strode forward purposefully, stopping at the center and turning on the spot. The chamber was remarkably and eerily different when it was empty. No winged people of various castes flitted among the stalactites which adorned the high ceiling. The large underground pool, usually used by waterbenders and sons of sea gods to annoy everybody else, was still and calm. The café, light bulbs flickering sadly, was pathetic in its barrenness.

"There must be some kind of clue," Nikki muttered frantically. "Something they left to tip us off to their location. Surely they must want to defend themselves. Surely they would be doing something to help. Just…not here! Yes, that's right. There must be a clue. The enemy is too bloody _stupid _to understand clues, they would have thought of that. I've just got to find it. That's right. Just got to find it."

The chamber was easily large enough to hold a dozen cathedrals, though even its grand size could only accommodate a small fraction of canons at a time. This was a fact that did not escape Nikki.

"Well, best get searching!" she said brightly, producing a magnifying glass and smiling in a way that suggested her mind was going to crack magnificently at any moment.

Aline remained where she had been left, not even noticing the possible concussion she could have gotten on contact with the stone floor. She stared blankly at the distant ceiling. Luckily, the human mind being the remarkable thing that it is, she eventually managed to convince herself that _surely _this Mpreg thing couldn't exist. That left dealing with Nikki, wherever she had gotten off to. Aline struggled up from the heap she had been left in and looked perplexedly at where Nikki was almost comically combing the stone floor for…well, something. She tried not to be unsettled by the emptiness and the loud echoes her footsteps sent emanating across the chamber, and walked over to her. "Um, Nikki?"

Said girl stopped examining the floor and looked up, the glint of madness in her eyes. "What?"

"Er, what are you doing?"

"Are you blind? What's it look like I'm doing?"

Aline thought her reply through carefully. She was not a quick thinker, but a good one when she bothered with it. "It _looks _like you're crawling around the floor looking for something that isn't there."

"Give the monkey a banana!" Nikki laughed loudly, and not very stably.

"Nikki, you're going insane. Stop it."

"I'm looking for clues, you dipwad, what else would I be doing? Clearly there's no one here, so _clearly _they must have left some hint of their location, so _clearly_ it is here, so _clearly _I've got to find it! You'd think you'd use that half-priced Wal-Mart brain of yours once in a while!"

There was a brief echo around the enormous cavern.

"Ah…I see." Aline nodded. "I just thought we could go through that plot hole over there instead, is all."

Nikki whipped her head around to where Aline was pointing. Indeed, a swirling chartreuse wormhole about five feet in diameter was hovering a few inches from the ground. There was a little sign stuck in the ground besides it which read 'To Headquarters'. She blinked at it, then scrambled up, brushing a misplaced hair away from her forehead. She coughed and looked regally around. "Ahem. Uh, right. You can just forget the last ten minutes now. Let's go."

"Right. By the way, you still haven't explained what you meant when you said our auth—"

But Nikki had already stepped into the vortex, yanking Aline with her.

They fell through time and space again, an experience which is impossible to process by the human mind and is generally automatically erased.

This time, Aline arrived at their destination without solid ground under her feet. Or any kind of ground, for that matter, as it seemed that the plot hole had misfired and deposited them some ten feet off the ground. She groaned inwardly—and so the predicted abuse began. Resigned, she braced for impact, but it turned out she didn't have to. A gust of air suddenly came up below her and she found herself being gently lowered to the ground. A bald boy with a blue arrow on his head was offering her a hand. "Thanks," she said, pulling herself up.

"You're welcome!" he said brightly before taking off, in the quite literal sense.

Aline started after him. "Did that boy just—?"

"Yeah, he does that," said Nikki beside her, brushing dust off her clothes. There was no dust to be seen, on the ground and on her clothes, but what else could you do after falling but brush yourself off? "Well, we've found the canons."

They indeed had, but this was not what was causing Aline to look around in her signature bewilderment. That honor went to the fact that they appeared to be located in a World War I era trench. A rather nice one, at that. It was concrete enforced with sandbags piled along the top edges, and at various spots along the walls canons were posted, a few operating actual cannons, a few with other weapons or binoculars. Aline thought she heard the rat-at-at-at-at-at of a machine gun. And what was that greenish glow…?

"Oh, hello," said a mild voice. There weren't exactly any shadows, but D managed to melt out of them anyway. "Finally showed up, I see."

"How long have you been here?" Nikki demanded.

D shrugged. "A few days. Insofar as there are days, anyways. No attacks yet, but I've been enjoying the flaming crossbow." She displayed it proudly. 'Lucy' was carved into the side. "It's semi-automatic."

Aline's eyes nearly popped out of her head, which was less comical and more disgusting when it was actually happening. "_Days? _We couldn't have been gone for more than forty minutes!"

"Time doesn't exactly work like that in this dimension," D said, seemingly only half-aware who she was talking to. "It's not linear. It's more five-year-old-scribbling-on-the-walls…-ear. I remember I once left for a short vacation and returned to find that I had already been back for a week."

"B-but," Aline sputtered. "What about my parents? What about my brother? Won't they wonder where I've gone?"

"Don't worry," Nikki said reassuringly. "In this canon, they conveniently don't exist for now."

"What do you _mean _they don't—?"

At that moment, something exploded, drowning out her next words. There was a blinding flash of light followed by an ear-shattering boom. Acting on pure instinct, Aline dived and covered the back of her head, heart hammering. A few seconds later, she opened one eye and noticed that absolutely nothing was different. No shrapnel, nothing burning, nobody even seeming all that worried.

"Wh-what was that?" she asked shakily.

Nikki eyed her. "That," she said slowly, "was an explosion."

"I got that part. But it doesn't seem to have _affected_ anything."

"Well, of course it didn't," Nikki scoffed. "Nothing's out there."

A few neurons in Aline's brain went _fzzt. _"But. I heard it. And there was the light. And the shake. And the. But the. Wha?"

"Now you're just being silly. It's a trench. If there aren't explosions around it, it isn't a trench; it's just a great big fortified ditch in the ground."

"Page 512," D put in helpfully.

"Anyway," Nikki said, rolling her eyes as if the concept of finding an explosion that did and didn't exist at the same time odd was the height of absurdness. "What I was trying to ask was: just what happened here?"

"Not much, actually," D said. "Once we decided that nobody was going to show up, we, in a very calm and orderly fashion with no disturbances whatsoever, took a plot hole back here. But Janella was with me, so it was thrown off course and we ended up in an encampment of fangirls."

Nikki's brow furrowed. "Oh dear. Casualties?"

"All of them—about a dozen, I think it was. I, ah, forgot to tell her the rule about not killing unless absolutely necessary. Anyway, it was fangirls, you know how they frenzy."

"Yes," Nikki said tartly, "I do."

D continued, "We found this place shortly afterward. It goes on for miles and miles; whole hosts of canons were already here. More showed up every day. I don't even know how they all found out about what was going on. I asked around, and apparently they were, eh, drawn to this place. Anyway, in other, more important news, I got this crossbow! It's got flaming arrows. I accidentally set a walrus on fire. It was awesome. Don't let the flamethrower fool you, old fashioned arson is plenty of fun, too."

Suddenly, another explosion. This one was green, but seemed to be real this time. Debris rained from the heavens, miraculously missing everybody except D, the corner of whose trench coat caught on fire. She didn't seem to notice. Aline coughed, her eyes watering.

"Oh, hell," Nikki growled, stalking in the direction of the blast. She was soon obscured by the smoke.

"Whatdid you _do, _George?"

"Nikki! A pleasure to see you, O most beauteous of the caretakers. What took you so long?"

"Answer the question before I reach down your throat and rip out your testicles."

"It was Fred's idea!"

"Was not! Besides, I'm George, _he's_ Fred. Can't you remember your own name, Fred?"

Silence. Presumably, a glare to end all glares was being delivered.

"Er. We were experimenting with this Greek fire the Stoll twins gave us, that's all."

"Tell me, what _is_ it with twins and chaos, anyway?"

"Don't ask us."

"And _stop talking in unison_, it's bloody annoying._"_

The argument continued, now part of the obligatory background noise that accompanied any war scene. D straightened suddenly and began to chew her thumbnail. "Newbface. Walk with me. I have a question."

Aline hesitated.

"I don't bite," D promised. "And I only set things on fire occasionally."

That seemed reasonable enough to Aline; she fell into step beside her.

"Have you written anything since the last time you were here?" D asked.

"Besides English essays?"

"Those don't count. Not real writing. Bullshit wrapped in words, but not writing."

Aline thought back. She hadn't, now that she thought about it. She'd had ideas. Whole truckloads of ideas, though only if the average idea took up a significant amount of space in a truck. And lots of incredibly clever little quotes that probably wouldn't have looked nearly as clever if she'd written them down. Oh yes, she had ideas—they haunted her almost as frequently as the memory of her first foray into the realm of fiction, but not once did she put pen to paper. Or finger to keyboard key, as it were. "No, nothing. Why?"

They walked in silence for a few seconds. "No reason. By the way, do you have house insurance?"

Aline blinked, a shadow passing briefly over her face. There was a conclusion on the horizon that she didn't want to arrive at. "Y—yes…?"

D nodded. "Good. I better be off now, got to find where Jasmine's gotten off to."

However, this proved to be unnecessary, as a moment later another figure rounded a bend in the trench. It was Jenna, carrying a pitcher of lemonade and a rolled up magazine. Her face and dress were slightly smudged with ash, but she was otherwise as deceivingly loveable as always. "I got that lemonade you asked for, but I couldn't find any still-beating hearts of virgins. Well, actually, I just couldn't find any virgins. Is that okay?" she asked, looking at D with wide, anxious eyes.

D took the pitcher and flipped open the magazine, nodding absentmindedly; a second later the rest of the girl's words registered. "Eh, Jessica," she said slowly. "I didn't _ask _for any still-beating hearts of virgins." She paused. "But then again, I guess you can never have too many."

Jenna nodded enthusiastically. "I'll search extra-extra-hard! I promise! So what were you saying before about evil laughter?"

A teenage boy, a canon presumably on guard duty judging by the binoculars, glanced up. "I wouldn't recommend it," he said. "Oh, sure, it _seems _like it would intimidate your enemies and relieve stress, but you'll only end up looking stupid—and possibly dead."

Aline stared at him. He was Asian, and classically handsome. He was neatly dressed, with immaculate brown hair and soft golden eyes. He was otherwise unremarkable, except for the notebook, which looked a bit—

She gasped.

"You!" she said shrilly.

He blinked. "Me?"

"Yes, you! You threatened to kill me!"

His brow furrowed. "Hm. That's odd," he said. "I don't think I've ever actually _threatened _to kill anybody. I just kill them."

Jenna's head snapped ninety degrees to the left. "Oooh!" she squealed. "Are you _the _Light Yagami? I've heard about your work. Taking over the world with such ingenuity really has to be admired. Can I have your autograph?"

He looked pained for a moment at the mention of name-writing. He was spared having to answer by the third explosion of the chapter, this time accompanied by the sound of breaking glass and a column of green flame. A moment later, Nikki stalked toward them, rubbing at a conspicuous red stain on her shirt. "The good news is we've found some ways to use Greek fire to kill people in new and inventive ways," she said, giving up on the stain and deciding that it would match the rest of her wardrobe anyway. "The bad news is a few pairs of twins are going to be out of commission for a while."

"Because of the fire?" Aline asked.

"No."

Aline tried to summon up the energy to be shocked or appalled and failed.

"Right, I've got a plan. I need to gather the fandom representatives as soon as possible, figure out how many are with us and have the representatives head the others from their worlds," said Nikki, clapping her hands together once. "So—" Her gaze landed on Light. "Hang on, what're you doing here? I didn't think you had any particularly crazy fangirls."

He sighed ponderously. "I'm not hiding from my fangirls. I'm hiding from _his _fangirls." He pointed viciously to L, a man of indeterminate age wearing faded jeans and a ratty old shirt, with messy black hair and a dead-set determination to give himself scoliosis.

Nikki nodded. "I see."

"I don't," Aline said flatly.

"Page 725, the Inexplicably Popular Character," D said, not looking up from her magazine.

"Oh…thanks."

"No problem, newbface."

Aline didn't bother to wonder how the book had managed to find its way back into her pocket when she had last left it in a small dark antechamber probably overrun by fangirls now. The Cliché Compendium had this to say on Inexplicably Popular Characters: '_A bewilderingly widely-loved character who may or may not have any actual appeal. While everybody is entitled to their odd tastes (just as they are entitled to be bitchslapped when they refuse to shut up about them), it is the sheer pervasiveness of this popularity that makes them an IPC. Often it is difficult to find even one person who honestly dislikes the character. In accordance with the Theory of Inverse Likeability, relative 'awesomeness' levels will wrap around the integral and become dislike in some fans. Hardcore fans are usually completely rabid and are not to be approached under any circumstances. Photographs of shrines have been found (see below). Also see: Inexplicably Popular Pairing.'_

What followed was a long, finely-printed list of characters to which this applied, along with photos and brief biographies. Aline was not surprised to find that she recognized almost all of them from her first trip to the Canon Retreat Chamber. By the time she returned to the relatively-real world, Nikki had left to collect representatives, Jenna was practicing her evil laugh, D was paging through _Overlord's Day, _and the two canons – Light and L the IPC – had to be sent to opposite sides of the trench after they'd gotten into an argument about whose fault the yaoi was. The section of trench was otherwise empty, the roar of machine guns and explosions forming a comfortable aural backdrop.

Nothing terribly interesting happened for some time. It might have been hours if hours existed on the Hub. Aline read through the Compendium, discovering interesting things about shipper's tribal wars, some reasonably hilarious examples of purple prose, and a list of facts about the human liver. She supposed that they would just be hanging around for a while, waiting for the Big Important War Meeting (also in the Compendium, which merely said 'Self-descriptive' for its entry) to start when the crackfic ran in.

They heard it before they saw it, as a long string of unintelligible, high-pitched babble reminiscent of a five-year-old having inhaled helium and quite a lot of sugar. It was loud enough to drown out Jenna's laughing practice. (She'd moved on to experimenting with wicked cackles and malevolent chuckles.)

"Gah," Aline managed, clamping her hands over her ears. "What's that?"

"What's what?" D said, not looking up from _Overlord's Day's _top ten list of hilarious misuses of ominous dark cloaks.

At that point, the thing fell over the top, not breaking stride. It bumped against the opposite wall, still shrieking, and ran around in a small circle.

"Sounds like a crackfic," D said mildly. She lowered the magazine and kicked the thing solidly with one booted foot. It soared through the air, hitting the wall with a loud thump. It quivered there for a moment, then fell stickily to the floor, and lay there twitching.

No longer dashing around madly and shrieking, it was possible to get a clearer look at the thing…which really didn't help that much, as it looked like a living, three dimensional version of a child's scribbling with a quartet of stick limbs. Aline paged through the Compendium feverishly, but when she found the entry on crackfics, all she discovered was an illustration of one and the word 'Cheese'.

Jenna poked it with a stick curiously. "It's actually kinda cute," she said, cocking her head to the side. "Can I kill it?" she asked D.

"Sure, kid, knock yourself out." D rummaged with one hand in the depths of her mysterious coat pockets for several seconds and withdrew an enormous hammer that was almost taller than her and probably weighed twice as much. She tossed it at Jenna, missed, and ended up creating a large hole in the wall. Jenna didn't seem to mind, but while she was extricating it, the crackfic regained its wits and jumped up, resuming its call and running away from the girl with the manic grin and giant hammer.

"Hey, come back here!" Jenna whined, making a frustrated noise in her throat and starting after it. Both of them were soon out of sight, but the floor shook every few seconds when Jenna—hopefully—missed.

_I need to get out of here right now, _thought Aline, who was not particularly a fan of having her head smashed in. She began to inch toward the wall, toward escape over the top. Just when she was close enough to risk breaking out into a full run, a plot hole a nasty sienna color appeared not a foot from her face.

That was it. If she had any doubts that plot holes existed solely to inconvenience her, they were now banished.

"Hi," Aline squeaked, more out of surprise than anything else.

"Hello," Nikki said, looking around, puzzled. "So, why is the floor shaking, and where is my—never mind, I just answered my own question." She turned to wanly look at D. "You know, you could have helped with the representative-gathering."

"I could have," D agreed.

"It isn't exactly _easy _to get the fictional population to agree on who's the most worthy of going to the Big Important War Meeting, you know."

"I do," D agreed again. She yawned and turned a page. "Are there any other insightful truths you would like to imprint on me?"

The background drone of the crackfic intensified; it ran past, spewing inside jokes and pop-culture references as it did. Jenna was not far behind it, hammer brandished.

"Remarkable how you learn just not to ask," Nikki marveled as she seized the back of Jenna's collar. "Oi, Jen, time for the Big Important War Meeting. Murder innocent creatures later."

Jenna pouted, letting the hammer drop. "I never get to have any fun."

Aline was still formulating escape plans, but it seemed she wouldn't be getting her chance any time soon. Plot holes of every sort were beginning to appear—slowly at first, then in droves. There was a cowboy. A spaceman. A few space cowboys. A creature that seemed to be nothing but a pulsing blue orb. A giant rat. Pretty tame by anybody's standards, but more were coming.

Soon the area, which had somehow grown from a relatively small corridor to a space large enough to hold a crowd (The Cliché Compendium's entry on the Laws of Physics merely said, '_an annoying aspect of reality that is better off ignored'), _was soon tightly packed with at least one canon from most of the larger worlds. Aline found herself being squeezed into what could only be described as a corner beside a man with an abnormally large cup of tea and several people with hair that put Nikki's to shame. D had not seen it fit to acknowledge the fact that anything out of the ordinary was happening, and instead was now clipping her fingernails and seeing how many people she could hit on the rebound.

Jenna stood close by and smiled. Very widely. For some reason, despite the cramped quarters, nobody stood within five feet of either of them.

At the center of this, Nikki stood silent. She would have preferred a proper headquarters, all sleek and shiny with a big round table and a giant screen displaying their symbol, but since she wasn't one of those uppity Sue-Hunters, she would just have to make do. But no matter.

The Big Important War Meeting had begun.

Somewhere in the crowd, Elrond commented to a gargoyle, "I've hosted better."


	6. The Big Important War Meeting

0000

Chapter Five

0000

Nikki climbed onto a crate—because crates, of course, were randomly strewn about a military base for people to stand up and proclaim things from, or alternatively break open to receive medical supplies—and switched on a megaphone. "Listen up—" was as far as she got before several people closest to her makeshift podium clutched at their ears and collapsed, moaning.

"Not so loud," a small blonde girl complained.

Nikki sighed, clunked her over the head with the megaphone, and tossed it to the ground where it joined the girl's now-unconscious body. Luckily, her voice was naturally loud and bossy. "Any more questions?"

Silence.

"Good. Alright then, we all know the deal—"

"I don't." At which point somebody in the back row hit Aline over the head with a rolled up newspaper, effectively quieting her.

Nikki continued, raising her hands in a very leader-like manner, "It's you canons, a few civilian authors joined to our cause, and four of us main characters up against the filth of this world: those who ignore the laws of this world and suffer no penalty. Our leader—a rather listless, inactive one, but a leader nonetheless—has been captured by the enemy. As second in command, that means control cedes to me. We need to be efficient and swift to overcome their brute force and numbers, which means, _Toph, _that we can't just chuck flaming rocks at them and expect that to work."

Toph crossed her arms defiantly and hmph-ed. "D said it was a good idea."

"D also says scorpion catapults are good ideas."

"I stand by my previous verdict," D put in. "Scorpion catapults would be fricken' sweet."

Nikki decided that ignoring D for the next hour or so would be the best course of action to avoid head-bursting migraines. "The enemy is thus far unknown but not unknowable. For now we shall remain and mount our attack from here. This will require some creativity. Suggestions?"

Silence again.

"Oh, come now. Let's brain storm. Giant floating weather-controlling brains, don't take that literally. Raise your hands or something."

A boy five years overdue for puberty with hair that just _couldn't _have been structurally possible, fiction physics or not, said. "I could challenge them to a children's card game!"

"No offense, Yuugi, but I don't think that's quite appropriate for the situation."

"Then—"

"Mind-crushes only work on those who have functioning minds." He looked crestfallen.

"I vote we all get roaring drunk!"

A group of pirates clinked their ever-present bottles of rum together. "I agree with Jack!"

D aimed a thumbnail at a giant, anthropomorphic lobster. "And I vote that we do that _after _you've taken back the dimension," she said mildly. "On the basis that doing otherwise would be bloody stupid. Next." Jenna smiled even wider. After a brief and very loud silence, the suggestions continued.

A man who, according to his hat, was a wizard (or as the case may be, wizzard) said, "Why can't we just run away and save our own skins? I didn't even want to be here in the first place."

Something that certainly _looked _like a dark Egyptian boy nodded approvingly. "Finally, some sense. I like the way the man in the silly hat thinks."

"I'll have you know that this is a _wizard's hat,_ thank you very much."

"Really?" Bartimaeus inquired, starting to smirk. "Because—"

Nikki coughed. "We're here to plan a war, not the best escape route."

"Well, you could've fooled me…"

At which point he was interrupted by a black-robed, bat-like man with greasy hair, who threw himself in front of the podium, screaming, "FIVE THOUSAND POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR!"

Nikki barely prevented her fingers from straying to her temples. She shouldn't be annoyed, she knew. Poor Severus had never been the same after being ambushed by a horde of SnapeWives. "Thank you for sharing, professor." To a stormtrooper, she whispered, "Remove his professorship, please."

Once Snape had been escorted a room with soft walls and no sharp objects, a vampire with a wide brim hat and a supremely psychotic grin said, "I say we get a bunch of really big guns and blow them all to tiny little pieces." Several of the more homicidally inclined canons nodded in agreement. Considering that most of the canons present were longtime Hub residents and had made the acquaintance of more than a few of their fans, this was a not insignificant group.

"Which would all be very well and good," Nikki said. "If we _had _any, really big guns big enough to dispose of an army millions strong."

"Pah!"

"However, I do approve of the 'blowing them to tiny little pieces' bit. What's our weapons log, Smith?"

Smith stood and recited in a monotone, "We have, along with specific weapons provided by individual canons, catapults, crossbows, various combustive devices, including Greek firebombs, realism capsules, logic bombs, anti-shipping-matter, and these candy canes sharpened to lethal points left over from the Christmas Special. Also a large trunk of Writer's Blocks, which nobody has touched with a ten foot metal pole."

It occurred to Aline that this was strange, but the thought was soon swept away washed up on the mental beach of equally strange things that she'd learned that day.

"So we managed to save the Writer's Blocks?" Nikki said, brightening. Smith nodded, a bit redundantly. Nikki felt better about their situation already. Any Writer's Blocks found in the wild were kept under strict control far away from nearly everything. They were completely useless as weapons in most circumstances, given their incredible and non-judgmental attitude toward destruction—they'd just as happily disintegrate the wielder as the target—but if the main supply was with the canons, then they weren't with the fangirls, and that was something.

"Right then," Nikki folded her arms in front of her authoritatively. "Somebody who happens to have a bucket of cold water can wake Meggie up. And we need a brilliant, unmatched strategist—who here is a brilliant, unmatched strategist?"

About a quarter of the canon's hands went up.

"Thought so. Alright then!" She clapped her hands together once, keeping them together and stretching. "Let's get to it."

0000

The area had cleared up considerably once duties had been assigned, among them scouts, infantrymen, marksmen, officers, toilet decloggers, chocolate suppliers, fly SWAT team, owl exterminators, baby panda providers, the Knights Who Say "In" (a lesser known sect of a certain other group) the People Who Fiddle With Things When They Don't Work, and Senior Yelling and Shouting Officers. Aline was left mostly alone, excluding a few emo teens from newer young adult fiction novels, the man with the abnormally large cup of tea, and Jenna, who had been ordered by D to practice standing around being intimidating in preparation for her future despotism. (Without, it may be noted, much success. Jenna was intimidating much in the same way a raven was like a writing desk. Much to her annoyance, her grins consistently stayed firmly behind the line between endearing and psychotic, her laughter remained merely charming and exuberant rather than truly maniacal, and the gleam of madness in her eyes was always misinterpreted as the mischievous twinkle of youth. It seemed that the only time she managed to provoke people into attempting to crucify her was when she was trying to charm them.)

Aline leaned against the smooth concrete wall, brooding, an activity she thought suited her very well indeed. It seemed as though she was stuck here for good, or at least until it blew over and she could convince somebody to send her home. She would be alright, she reasoned, if she stayed on the fringe of things and read to pass the time. It wasn't as if she could actually do anything, so that probably wouldn't be a problem. Surely there was someone more pathetic than her in this world of worlds who could function as an underdog (which, she had found out, the Cliché Compendium defined as '_a loser; a pathetic, miserable little piss of a person who fails at everything they attempt and a few things they don't. These qualities make them endearing. Underdogs are granted rights to automatically save the day when things are at their direst. _She had just enough dignity left to be offended by this_) _

She was resigned to a few days of solid reading time when she realized one of the pale skinny kids was a few inches away from her face. "Hey," he said huskily.

"Er…hello." Aline leaned back as far as she could without falling over, and then fell over anyway. "Can I help you?"

"I'm a vampire," he said.

She looked him over, from his 'Bite Me' t-shirt to his plastic vampire fangs, the kind you got at arcades for 25 tickets. "No you aren't."

"You cannot deny what your heart tells you to be true!" he shouted, clawing the air as he fell dramatically to his knees.

"I'm sure you're right," Aline said.

"Do you feel seduced yet?" He was leaning in again, close enough for her to count his multitudes of unfortunately-placed pimples.

"Not particularly, no." She hurriedly got to her feet and started backing away. "I'm going to go away now," she informed him, but she barely got a few feet, still holding up her hands as if he was some kind of acne-laden, overdramatic predator, before she bumped into the man with the cup of tea.

"Oh, sorry!" she began, but he wasn't listening. He was staring into his cup with the miserable expression of one who has been bumped into without any apology to speak of far too many times that day. She started, realizing he was familiar, and not just in the expression she often saw in the various reflective surfaces on the Hub.

"Say," Aline said. "Are you Arthur Dent?"

He paused in his despondent tea-staring, surprised at having someone address him by name. "Oh. Yes. Arthur Dent. That's me." He seemed to lose interest in her then, and continued staring into the lukewarm tea.

"Just wondering why you were here," Aline said. "I didn't know you had any crazies to hide from."

Arthur gave a weak laugh that held little humor in it. "Oh, I don't. My friends do. I was dragged here by a particularly unstable one of them."

"Same," Aline sighed.

"Did you at least get a useful guidebook out of it?"

"Yep. I think yours is probably more interesting, though. Let me guess; Ford, right?"

"Oh, yes. I also strongly suspect it's his fault some of those girls are convinced that we are in love with each other." His tone was so sardonic that Aline had to laugh.

It was then she realized what the significance of this meeting was. That, in all the worlds, there was probably one person who truly knew what it was like to be like her, to be dragged along on an unwanted adventure, finding not self-actualization, personal discovery and attractive members of the opposite sex, but injury and general disregard. It was more than that, even – some kind of connection, like they were versions of each other across the bridge of worlds. Aline knew little of narrative physics, but she knew a kindred spirit when she saw one.

Unfortunately, Aline also knew how to put her foot in her mouth with astounding efficiency and regularity.

"Yeah, though give 'em some credit," she joked. "Like that time you were trapped on prehistoric Earth, with no one else around, alone for months, nothing to do except—" At which point she got a face full of lukewarm tea.

She blinked plaintively, stunned. She lifted the curtain of wet bangs from her eyes. "Was it something I said?"

0000

Nikki was very annoyed,

For one thing, whipping a rabble of unruly fictional character into a proper army was proving harder than she had imagined. Not as many as she had hoped had appeared—most of the ones present were from popular, fangirl-suffused worlds, namely, those that had revenge as a motivation. The prospect of some fun time destroying a few annoyances in the form of high-pitched teenage girls had also attracted a number of sociopaths and psychopaths, which was problem number two, as Jenna was beginning to learn more and more by example.

And while taking over a world and commanding it with an iron fist for a thousand years of misery as the supreme ruler of darkness was fine—there were, after all, plenty to go around, and ambition was always to be encouraged—she really did not need another psychotic ten-year-old running around, especially not one she happened to be related to.

But all of that could be dealt with, if it were not the fact that she was in a meeting.

Meetings of any kind were generally arduous processes that were to be endured when there was no possible escape. Due to the bizarre physics governing meetspace, meaning any room containing a group of people attempting to formally solve a problem, meetings had a number of strange characteristics. For one thing, any timekeeping device in meetspace immediately slows down considerably, stops altogether, or explodes, with occasional reports of them coming alive and dancing a jig about halfway through. However, the most interesting thing about meetspace is that although each person may individually have the tools to solve the problem, when submerged in meetspace solving of the problem becomes immediately impossible. The Cliché Compendium describes meetings as, _'Hell, except not nearly as warm and you're not allowed to bring snacks.'_

But even _that_ could be dealt with, were it not a meeting of Brilliant, Unmatched Strategists.

As it turned out, geniuses were much like five-year-olds, except five-year-olds were easily bribed with candy and shiny objects.

The thing about having several geniuses in a room together is that ego swells in direct proportion with intelligence, and as a result, overgrown Self-Importance glands coupled with great intelligence left little room for anybody _else's _opinions. This along with the fact that geniuses, fictional or otherwise, tended to be highly eccentric, complete sociopaths, selfish bastards, or all three, produced an oversupply of headaches and murderous intentions, particularly in persons by the name of Nikki.

Perhaps it was her fault for not dividing up meeting times. Yes, in hindsight, it would have been much easier if there was a one-brilliant-unmatched-strategist-per-fandom limit, because it would prevent situations such as, oh, for a random example, half the cast of _Death Note _showing up and proceeding to spend much of the time attempting to kill each other in increasingly convoluted ways.

Well, Light did. Nikki had to confiscate his eponymous Death Note. Hissy fits were thrown, hissy fits were made fun of by enemies, people were sent to opposite corners of the room for a time-out—overall, not a pleasant experience. Nikki didn't mind homicide in principle, but she agreed with most people that it was not very conducive to attempting to get some of the smartest people in the multiverse to sit down and have a reasonable discussion.

Irritatingly, a good chunk cast of Artemis Fowl was present as well. Artemis and Minerva ended up in relationship counseling (with Sokka—nobody was quite sure what hewas doing there, but most of them opted to shut up when he pointed out he actually had military experience, unlike most of them), which ended up in a nasty break-up and several very long, presumably unpleasant words exchanged. Opal and Foaly argued in loud shrieks for half an hour on various technological subjects, and then chose to snog for the rest of the meeting instead (and, since meetspace mirrors real(ish) life in microcosm, _also _ended up in relationship counseling with Sokka, which ended with more snogging).

Nikki heaved a sigh with more than a dash of growl in it and tapped her fingers on the table as yet another pair of token professors from some sci-fi series came to blows. It was enough to make her yearn for a smoke break.

Which was odd, because as far as Nikki knew, she didn't smoke.

There was a _twang_ as her patience snapped. "EVERYBODY SHUT UP!" she screamed, standing up in her chair. Brawlers and snoggers alike paused in their activity of choice. She hesitated. This was supposed to be the part where she shamed the mob about their behavior and nothing was coming to mind. "Just…shut up," she finished lamely, storming from the room. "And nobody leave the Naughty Corner of there'll be trouble!" she added as she left, only to bump into a scout on her way out.

"General!" the scout said, slightly out of breath. "Someone is approaching from the northeast. What should we do?"

Nikki was suddenly all ears. "What does she want? Where is she? And what d'you mean, 'northeast'?"

The scout shrugged. "It sounded official," he said. "That way." He hurried off, and Nikki followed him, ignoring a girl's cry of indignation as she snatched her binoculars.

A sniper squad was waiting for command. Nikki peered over the trench wall. Indeed, a figure blurred slightly by the distance was approaching. Probably not a weeaboo. A fangirl? A rogue shipper? Not an ally, judging by the flag.

This was a delicate situation; she would have to judge wisely. A few seconds later she lowered the binoculars.

She said to the sniper squad, "Blast her."

"She's waving a white flag," one Artemis Fowl, who had followed her in snubbed outrage that she was ignoring his brilliant plan, replied dryly.

"Blast her anyway," she said, somewhat shrilly. What was the point of orders when they weren't followed?

"Blast her and my good friend Butler will be having a word with you later," the irritating boy informed the squad as the grinning giant behind him cracked his knuckles.

Stupid Butler.

Now Nikki was seated across the silly girl at a metal skeleton of a table, a bare bulb suspended by gods-knew-what swinging above them. Her headache had not improved. Again and again she attempted to reason with her, but proved utterly unsuccessful, as the fangirl _refused to speak English. _

"Okay," Nikki said patiently, putting on her best 'you can talk to me' face and clasping her hands friendlily in front of her. "Let's try this again. I'm going to ask you a question. Answer me _in English. _Or, if you prefer, Spanish. Or perhaps French or Italian. Actually, you can go ahead and speak Russian if you like, or maybe Icelandic or Swahili—in fact, we can make this a game! Guess the language! But…please—speak—like—a—normal—person. Got it?"

The fangirl nodded enthusiastically.

"Alright. Why are you here?"

"Percabeth! Percabeth percabeth percabeth. Percabeth?"

Nikki's palm met her forehead.

"Problems?" D asked tonelessly, though Nikki could tell the other girl was suppressing a smirk.

"When did you get here?"

D shrugged. "I'm always here."

"Whatever. Do you speak fangirl?"

D finally glanced up from Jenna's copy of the month's issue of _Better Homes and Torture Chambers_. "Which dialect?"

"All this one will say is the word 'Percabeth'."

"Advanced Shippanoma, sounds like. Fetch a canon; they're more attuned to this kind of thing."

Nikki rubbed her temples ineffectually. The fangirl had thankfully stopped speaking, choosing instead to stare into the distance and giggle occasionally. Nikki looked around and pointed to a boy in medieval clothes. "You! Random underling! Go fetch somebody who can speak fangirl and be quick about it!"

The boy looked stunned. "Me? But…but I'm a main character! You can't treat me like this!"

"Yeah? Who's your author, then?"

The boy's eyes cast downward in shame. "…Christopher Paolini."

"Bah! Go get me my translator."

Eragon sighed and trudged off. He returned several minutes later with a curly-headed girl preoccupied with something she was scribbling on a clipboard, the man with the hat that said 'wizzard', and a giant bat.

Nikki was coming up with disturbingly few reasons not to just bludgeon the chattering fangirl to death, and was thankfully saved from drawing conclusions from this by the arrival. "Ah, thank you. Alright, you three, I've got a problem and—um, why did you bring a giant bat, exactly?"

"Rule of Threes," Eragon said.

"I see. Just...take the bat and leave, okay?"

"Well, there's no need to be rude," the bat huffed, and flew off, hitting Eragon in the face with a wingtip as it did so.

A few seconds passed. "The first person to make the 'driven batty' pun dies," D said conversationally.

"No homicide outside the designated areas, please," Nikki said tiredly. "Okay, then, you two—thank you for coming, we're having a bit of a communication problem here."

The wizard mumbled a greeting a looked around nervously. "She's not, um, dangerous, is she? No, forget it; of course she is, why else would I be told to get involved…"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Happy to help," Annabeth said distractedly.

Artemis, who had refused to leave until _somebody _listened to his ingenious strategy, was looking at her. "Hello," he said to her. "I'm Artemis. Fowl, that is."

"Yes, hello." She nodded at him vaguely.

Nikki said, "We've got this fangirl here, she came bearing a white flag—well, a mostly white flag. There's a rather ungrammatical fanfic written on it." She passed said fanfic to Artemis who wrinkled his nose in distaste at it and passed it to D, who glanced at it once and passed it to Jenna, along with her flamethrower and a quick "You know what to do."

"I don't speak the Percabeth dialect," Nikki said again as a minor firestorm raged briefly behind them. "Do either of you know it?"

"Sorry, no," Rincewind said. "There aren't very many of them trying to sneak onto the Disc, and running is usually preferable to reasoning when it comes to their sort, anyway."

"It does sound familiar," Annabeth mused. "Can I try?" She turned to the fangirl and gestured for her to speak.

"Percabeth. Percabeth percabeth percabeth," the fangirl repeated.

"Yeah…" Annabeth said slowly. "It make sense to me. I think it's because I'm a member of the ship. She says that her name is Nina and that she has a message for you."

"Percabeth percabeth percabeth, perca-percabeth. Percabeth?"

"She says that their leader wants to meet with us in the mutant plot bunny breeding grounds," Annabeth continued.

"Why?" Nikki said icily, her suspicion meters nearly exploding.

"Percabeth percabeth, percabeth."

"To negotiate the terms of our surrender. Our safety will be guaranteed for the duration of the meeting."

Nikki's eyes flashed, though her voice remained controlled. "Yeah, _no._"

"Percabeth, percabeth percabeth. Percabeth percabeth."

"She says to come anyway…that some kind of agreement can be reached."

Nikki searched the fangirl's face for a sign of deception, but knew it was futile. If there was an ambush, whoever had sent Nina certainly wouldn't tell her about it. The situation reeked of suspicion. When war happened on the Hub—and the last time it did it was just a paltry one involving a dispute over jelly donuts—between the chaos and the extremely interesting deaths there wasn't much room for honor. But it was a chance for information. They didn't know anything about their opponent besides the fact that they were organizing the fangirls, and Nikki did not like being in the dark. She liked being dead even less, and would have gladly punted the fangirl out of their trench in lieu of an answer, were it not for the plot informing her quietly but firmly that she was going whether it made tactical sense or not.

She gave an internal sigh of resignation. "Very well," she said, steepling her fingers as intimidatingly as she could. "You will have your meeting. But know this." She inclined her head and tried her best to make her eyes blaze with dark fire. "Our reserve force is not to be trifled with, and we posses the Hub's greatest concentration of Writer's Blocks. If the terms of this agreement are broken, I will consider all barriers of humanity and honor to be broken and sacrifice however many of my own men I need to make sure every single one of them is used on you. Tell your leader that. Now get out of my sight."

"Eeee!" Nina squealed happily. "PERCABETH!"

"Call if you need any more help with her." Annabeth turned to leave.

"What was that last thing she said?" Nikki asked, rising.

"Oh." Annabeth looked over her shoulder briefly. "That was just nonsense. Something like 'I really wish you and Percy would get together'. Excuse me." She walked away, scribbling something on the clipboard. After a beat, Artemis followed her with a last haughty look.

"I met Gaudi, you know," he told her, extremely casually.

"Really?" She cocked her head to the side questioningly, but she was smiling.

"Oh yes," he asserted. "Let me tell you about this time I tried demon spotting and ended up getting briefly thrown on a cross-dimensional, cross-temporal roller coaster…"

The faint strains of crossovershipping were still reverberating as they left.

The fangirl stared after them with open-mouthed horror. "P-percabeth!," she said disbelievingly. "PERCABETH! PERCABEEEEEEETH!" She collapsed, sobbing and shrieking like her heart had been utterly shattered.

Nikki examined her impassively. "Are you going to leave now?" Nina continued wailing and seizing clumps of her hair. The corner of Nikki's lip twitched and she rubbed her temples. "Damn. And I didn't even hire a Fangirl Removal Squad. Uh, hey, you? Go away. You're ruining my view of the wall."

"I almost feel sorry for them sometimes," D mused. "The truths they'll have to face one day."

"Since when do you have that capacity?" Nikki asked, perturbed.

"I said _almost_."

A crash echoed somewhere in the distance. Their attention was momentarily distracted, which had no discernible effect besides giving Nina an opportunity to gather herself and scramble over the top and get away. D frowned, brow furrowing.

"Hey, whatever happened to newbface?" she questioned.

Nikki shrugged. "Off somewhere terrorizing innocent British men, probably. Why does it matter?"

The other pursed her lips. "About the Writer's Blocks. I had this theory…"

"Later, okay? I have way too much to deal with right now."

At that moment, Aline wandered into sight, looking a bit more miserable than usual and ringing out her hair. "This always happens to me," she muttered.

Nikki gave her a dead look. "Why are you—oh, never mind. Listen, there's a rendezvous with the enemy in an hour's time. Aline, I need an underdog. That's you. If anything goes horribly awry, the plot will guarantee that you will be the one to fix it. D, stay here. Main character shield means I'll probably be okay, but it _is_ convention, so I need somebody I can trust to lead the rest.

Aline made an indignant noise. "Okay, seriously guys, what do you mean, main chara—"

"Ooh, are we leaving the trench?" Jenna interjected. "Can I come? I've been wanting to find a familiar, some kind of animal or demon or something that follows me around and does my bidding."

Nikki had gone very white. "Jenna, watch where you point that—!"

As per the rules of comedic timing, a particularly flammable section of trench exploded into flames. Screaming followed shortly afterwards.

Nikki lowered an enquiring finger. "Aaand, that'll be the gas tank," she said weakly.

D snorted, almost giggled even. "Nice job, kid, but next time, aim for the enemy. Now gimme back my flamethrower."

Aline tapped her fingers together. "Um. I could get a bucket."

Nikki sat down slowly, putting her arms over her knees. Some of the smartest people in several worlds were arguing like children, they still didn't know how to beat an army the size of the one they'd be facing, especially if they wanted to keep some of them alive, the enemy was possibly planning something extra-heinous, Aline was being Aline and now, explosions.

And on top of all that, she still had a headache.

"We're completely doomed," she said, not-quite-stable laughter bubbling under the surface of her words. A green dog walked past and began to sing the Doom Song, which most people ignored.

"You say that as if it even needs to be said," Aline said.

In the background, the trench continued to burn.


	7. Let's Meet The Villains For Tea

0000

Chapter Six

0000

It was dawn.

Or rather, it _would _have been dawn if the realm of misplaced imagination had anything resembling a sun—or for that matter, a sky. As is, it was merely some time around five in the morning. Although nobody had any way of knowing this, as time functioned very annoyingly on the Hub, and all watches in the world, not having any truck with all this non-linear nonsense, had gone on strike and were refusing to tick.

But, for all practical and thematic purposes, it was dawn.

Mutant plot bunnies hopped through the field of dead grass that the company was waiting in. The rabbits' status as creatures of pure imagination had molded the landscape, the uniform blankness broken for an acre or so. There were a few spots like this on the Hub, though they rarely stayed in the same place for long and generally could only be found if the plot demanded it.

The small host of canons and Nikki seemed utterly unfazed by the monstrous creatures, while Jenna surveyed them with a fascination that was probably intended to be malicious and scheming but came off as innocently curious. Aline alone was unnerved. Their fur was a mottled green with large patches of it missing, their eyes yellowed and savage with just a slight spark of intelligence, their teeth unhealthily long and broken, many of them with hunched backs and extra body parts.

Something rough nudged her ankle. She glanced down in alarm to find a mutant rodent staring at her mournfully. One of its ears twitched. It was rather worse for wear than the rest. One of its eyes had migrated to its forehead and a chunk of skull was missing, exposing grey matter that looked more green than grey. She examined it with slight apprehension. You know, she thought, once you get past the radioactive skin, they were almost cute.

"Hi there," she said to it.

"Ribbit," it replied, a long red tongue darting out to snap up a buzzing fly near her kneecap. She shrieked and lurched away from it, crashing into the farthest canon on the right. She assumed it was a Death Eater, judging from the mask, black robes, and muttered broken Latin accompanied by a burst of purple light that blasted her forcefully out of his personal bubble.

"Sorry," she said meekly, rubbing the back of her head. The Death Eater merely grunted in return, muttering impotently about killing all Muggles.

If there had been a sun in the sky, it would have slowly risen. If anybody's watch had been working, they might have checked it and frowned. In other less crafty words, time passed.

Nikki hissed, "Where the hell are they?" Aline could almost hear tiny strings of patience snapping in her head.

Not a second later, a sound was heard. It was the steady, pounding noise of several well-rehearsed feet marching in perfect rhythm, with the kind of frightening, steady beat that one wouldn't think human feet were capable off. Immediately, all the mutant rodents' ears perked up, their jaundiced eyes widening. Just as suddenly, they hopped madly away as one, their frantic squeaking joining the steady drumbeats in the distance.

Jenna dived, seizing one by what for lack of a better word would be called its tail. It squeaked all the louder, panic settling into its rodent brain. It tried to cling to the lifeless grass with its paws—well, appendages—desperate to escape its fate. No such luck. The girl held it at arms length as it sagged, defeated, and smiled widely.

"I think I'll call you Fluffy," she announced. As a matter of fact, Fluffy had about the same level of fluffiness as the lint in an average jean pocket. "And I'll love you, and hug you, and feed you, and train you to be a ruthless killer, and give you growth hormones, and teach you to resent the world, and then together we'll destroy them all! Yay!" She hugged it to her chest, tiny cartoon hearts fluttering around her head.

"Awww…" several canons said in unison beside her. Nikki silently saluted the poor monster-bunny, her heart going out for its terrible fate.

The drum beats were louder than ever now. Suddenly, over the grassy knoll, a phalanx of units appeared. And that was all they could truly be called: units. They looked nothing alike, and yet their perfect, unfailing march left no doubt that they had something resembling a hive mind.

They came to a stop a few yards in front of the group, all at the exact same time.

Huh, Nikki thought. This is new. She wasn't worried, exactly; it wasn't in her nature to compromise the notion that she wouldn't have any problems kicking the ass of whatever was in her way. Dangerously confident? Perhaps, but Nikki knew how this kind of thing worked. Protagonists always found an obstacle, panicked, overcame said obstacle, and celebrated. She had a pillow embroidered with it, in fact: 'Obstacle, Panic, Success, Celebration'. After some years of being a protagonist, Nikki learned to skip step two, and found it was better for public relations anyway.

Still. Those things unnerved her. She didn't know what they were and she had made it her business to know things for years. There was something about them, something inhuman, that made her sure they were dangerous far beyond the normal fare.

Aline came to more or less the same conclusion, albeit her logical thought process mostly involved the fact that they appeared to have laser beams for eyes.

Nobody resembling a leader was in sight. Nikki staunchly ignored her frazzled nerves, reminding them that the only negative emotions she was supposed to have were the ones that were bad for _other _people, and spoke. "Well?"

The units parted, flowing aside like water. From the cavity in the formation emerged a woman, possibly in her early forties. She was tall, wore a long white lab coat and very sensible shoes. Her blonde hair was affixed to her head in a pristine bun, and her tired face was remarkable in that there was absolutely nothing remarkable about it.

She also carried a clipboard. She didn't need it; there were no papers that needed to be clipped or written on. She brought it anyway.

Her name was Marie, and she only ever wanted to be an accountant. Maybe even something as exciting as a banker. She was also the villain of this particular work.

Nikki stared at her. She opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it, half-raising a finger only to lower it again. Again, she opened her mouth, and failed in both saying something and closing it again, as her brain was at the moment trying to process the information her eyes were giving it without much success.

After several moments, the mouth kicked back into action, only to jam and get stuck on a brief loop. "Wha…but…how…? Nnrgh…h—no—wh…" It snapped shut again, did some repairs, and continued in a tone that very adequately communicated helpless bewilderment from a person who normally did not encounter such concepts outside of dictionaries. "_Mother?"_

"Mother?" Aline repeated incredulously.

"Mother," Marie confirmed. "And being as such, I have to ask, dear, just what on earth have you done to your hair?"

The company was immediately reminded of the 'teenage' part of 'teenage war leader'. "What's wrong with my hair?" she demanded haughtily.

"Everything! The colors are bizarre, the cut is all wrong for you and it covers your pretty face. Last time I saw it, it was at least long and blue, and now this? Hot pink and neon green? Really?"

"Pink and green go well together and anyway that's not the point! What are you _doing _here?"

Marie ignored the question, scanning Nikki over critically. "And what happened to your clothes?"

Nikki fiddled with the edge of her top guiltily. "I…I might have altered them. A bit."

"Yes, if by altering you mean completely ruining a perfectly good outfit. And where did that red stain come from?"

"They're what's everybody is wearing!"

"In a Mardi Gras parade, maybe."

"Ugh, _mom! _You always do this to me!"

"Young lady, as long as you live under my roof, you will obey my rules!"

"What roof?" Aline asked. Several heads suddenly craned upward. A blank abyss looked back. It was neither whiteness nor blackness; it was a complete and utter absence of anything at all.

Marie was silent for a few moments. She smoothed back her hair. "Yes, well," she said. "I was speaking metaphorically." She coughed demurely. "But that aside, we are here to negotiate your surrender, yes?"

"No," Nikki said in a voice flatter than something that was extremely flat.

"Nikki, don't be stupid. The ranks I've amassed are enormous. Put your stubbornness aside for five minutes and realize that your obstinacy would be the deaths of tens of thousands." 

"Are you completely nutters?" Nikki scoffed. "You have numbers, but no way to control them. Fangirls are wild creatures—no one can control large groups of them. Least of all _you,"_ she sniffed. "You could never run this dimension. I was the one doing everything! Ever since I was thirteen. Thirteen! If anybody should be turning on their family and raising armies in bitter rebellion, I should! I earned it! All _you _did was welcome new members and do inspections for ages. "

"Don't talk to your mother that way," Marie said stiffly, maintaining composure.

"Well, it's true!"

"Learn to respect your elders."

"Sure, as soon as my elders stop betraying me."

Marie gritted her teeth. "There's no reasoning with you. You're the same little girl you were when you could barely walk."

"Oh, no reasoning with _me! _Isn't that rich, coming from you._"_

"I see there are some complex family dynamics going on here," Aline said. "But can we get on with it?" Jenna nodded silently. Fluffy tried to gnaw through her wrist to freedom, and failed.

Marie pinched the bridge of her nose. "Enough of this. I'll have you know that I can control my legions just fine. Most of the _fangirlius _genus isn't very bright, but they make fine warriors. The duty of the caretakers is to keep this world in line—and the reason that the job exists is that if any faction ever managed to amass a proper army, the rest of the Hub would be overwhelmed. Granted, fangirls and their sort aren't all that intelligent. Or at any rate, very easily distracted. If they ever formed an army without a driving central force, it would summarily fall apart. Remember a couple years ago? The rebellion attempt?"

Nikki shuddered involuntarily. The Jelly Donut Incident of 2003 still haunted her.

Marie continued, smiling, "But there are certain ways they can be utilized. Look around. Have you ever seen such perfect obedience?"

The girl had to admit this was true. They were still standing perfectly still, but now that Nikki looked at them closely, she realized they did, in fact, breathe and occasionally even blink. Otherwise, they seemed as inhuman as ever. "Okay, so what's up with them? Hypnosis? Cyborgs? Good old fashioned hired sociopaths?"

"Nothing so fantastical." Marie's smile grew infinitesimally wider. "Forgetting your training already?"

"What? There wasn't anything in the textbooks about—" The realization hit her like a truck full of bricks. Shortly afterward the frantic denial hit like a little red wagon full of pillows. "Oh, you didn't," she said flatly.

"I did." Marie strolled around the phalanx, gesturing. "This elite force is a unique hybrid occurring in unnature. Shipper, fangirl, and weeaboo, all combined into one. Remarkable, really. Of course, most of them were exterminated decades ago—deemed too dangerous to exist in normal company by my predecessor—but some survived. They lurk alone or in small groups at the edges of civilization, content, but hungry for revenge and easily bribed." She turned her head and gave a piercing look. "Come now, you're a smart girl. Have you guessed it yet?"

Nikki wondered who had mysteriously turned her blood to ice, and whether that was medically sound. "I thought they were only myths."

Marie's smile suddenly became a lot more disquieting. "That's right," she said. "Yaoi fangirls." At that, lightning flashed, a roll of thunder boomed, dramatic music played, and thousands of miles away and a few dimensions over several people keeled over with heart attacks. Fell wolves lifted their heads and howled at the bloated moon, as they often did on the Hub. These were specially bred Dramatic Wolves, after all.

The Cliché Compendium had only one thing to say about yaoi fangirls. It was written in red ink, large font, and obnoxiously blocky typeface. It was this: '_Run.' _

"Intelligent," Marie said. "Definitely the smartest of the genus. The duller ones died off in the Slash Massacre. Their reasoning, while a product of controlled insanity, works, as skewed as it is. They can operate alone or in groups. Excellent warriors. Endlessly determined. Operating on a nearly endless supply of hormones, they—"

"I know what they are," Nikki snapped.

"Yes, dear, but the readers don't."

"_What readers?" _Aline muttered, tugging to at her hair.

Nikki could feel every single male canon behind her getting nervous. They were itching to run. She was rapidly losing what little control she had over the situation, and that was about third on her list of things to avoid at all costs, next to bull elephants and flying coconuts. Yaoi fangirls…! But behind the shock was a realization. Yaoi fangirls…yaoi…If her hunch was correct, it could get them out of a bad situation. It turned her stomach to consider it, but she knew her men would do what was needed if it came to that.

For now, it was time to do what she always did when a conversation stopped going the way she wanted it to go, and that was blindly, clumsily changing the subject. With some effort, she adopted a steely-eyed look and crossed her arms. "This is the part where you explain why you've gone and betrayed your own flesh and blood."

Marie blinked. "You mean, say to hell with strategic secrecy and tell you all about my plans? Why would I do that?"

"Oh! Oh! I know! Pick me!" Aline said half-sarcastically, waving her hand in the air, then without waiting for an answer— "It's because you're the villain here, and therefore have to explain your evil plan to the heroes before killing them!"

"But I'm not going to kill any heroes just now," Marie pointed out. "I'm related to at least two of them. Also, it says in the plot I'm not supposed to do that yet, and besides, it's quite messy."

"I know you've gone traitor," Nikki said, "But this is still the Hub. We must follow some convention."

Marie tapped tapped her fingers crossed arms. "Very well," she said. "I suppose I must."

"Huh," Aline said under her breath. "I can't believe that actually worked."

"You get used to it," Nikki said.

Marie took a deep breath. "Alright, then, this is my motive rant. Listen up, I'm not repeating myself." The lighting suddenly became more dramatic, and Marie's voice took on an echoy quality. "I hate this job. I've always hated this job and this insane dimension. And you know what? I've no way out. No one in the bloodline has a way out. You don't have a way out, nor will any children you decide to doom. With our younger and…ah…less reputable creators I found a common goal of freedom. The fangirls have long been dissatisfied with the way I run things. They don't want standards. They want fun. They want a promise of no more persecution. I, as current caretaker, could promise them that if they helped me accomplish my goals."

Nikki made a rolling gesture with her fingers. "And they are?"

"To topple the Fourth Wall."

"What?" Nikki snorted. "You mean that thing that we all leave in rubble on a regular basis in the name of meta-humor?"

Aline blinked a few times. "What?"

"Aline, please shut up."

"Okay."

"Not the fourth wall," Marie corrected. "The Fourth Wall. Capitalized."

Nikki's face remained blank, but a different sort of blank. This was carefully calculated indifference, every muscle pulled into perfectly calibrated blankness. "And why?" she said, each word a pebble thrown into a very deep well.

"Why?" Marie said, as if she were surprised that Nikki was dim enough to ask. "To do the only thing that can really help this sad, empty world. I'm going to remove the Author."


	8. The Highly Contrived Rendezvous Ends

0000

Chapter Seven

0000

There was a long, heavy silence. It was followed by a shorter, lighter silence.

"You're kidding, right?" Nikki didn't wait for an answer. "You're insane."

Marie pursed her lips disapprovingly and put a hand on her hip. "Nikki. I've taught you better. What did I tell you about clichés?"

Nikki crossed her arms and sighed. "To not use their destructive powers unless they're true," she muttered. "But if you think for a second that could work, you must be. Have you any idea what the consequences of breaking the Fourth Wall are? The last time it so much as cracked, that was only for a few minutes, and it caused quantum physics. The time before that created dark matter. The time before that, Detroit. I can't even imagine the sheer…sheer _madness _that would spring from the corners of the multiverse if you actually broke through!"

"Don't you quote history at me," Marie said calmly. "Once I am through to the other side, I will seal the break."

"And even if you could cross over to the other side," Nikki continued, her voice rising steadily, "and even if you manage to seal the break, and even if you manage to do so before reality disintegrates enough to render any such action impossible, and even if the Author actually let themselves get killed, what do you suppose would happen next?" She was practically shouting now. "Everything would cease to exist!"

"No," Marie said patiently, as if talking to a slow-witted child. "We'd be free. No longer would our actions be dictated by this so-called Author. We would finally have true liberty."

"Don't you get it? If there's nobody writing the story, we can't exist. It's simple narrative physics." Narrative physics was a study shrouded in mystery, and Nikki had only the vaguest understanding of it—but to kill the Author…! You might as well kill gravity or magnetism. Not that the Hub had any problems disregarding either of those things whenever it suited its purpose.

Aline, for her part, had given up. No one was going to tell her anything, and she was beginning to accept it. Fine. _Fine. _Everybody was acting as if they were fictional characters. That was jolly well fine with her.

"If I may ask, daughter, what exactly are you basing these assumptions on? Dogmatic textbooks and sayings with questionable grains of truth in them? It seems a tad bit silly for everything to cease existing just because their creator is no longer dictating all their moves, doesn't it?"

"And it seems a bit silly that a mysterious force called 'gravity' sticks people to the ground, doesn't it?"

"You're being petulant."

"Don't mean I'm not right."

Marie sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Maybe. But I think I might prefer insanity to…to this, and you certainly would too after long enough. The caretaker job is for life, and you aren't free of it when a new one takes over. You've been doing it how long? Three years? Four?"

"Five and a half," Nikki said defensively. The other waved a hand impatiently.

"Barely anything. I've been here for the better part of four decades. You'd think I could just open up a plot hole, pack everything up and leave with you two in tow, but no. A force I cannot explain compels me to stay. You know it. The _Plot," _she spat the word like a dirty word. "And you know what, daughter mine? It can go to hell. This is my life; this is _your _life. You would have done the same."

"I certainly would not," the girl said stiffly. "I'm nothing like you."

"No," Marie sighed, "No, I suppose you aren't. You're far more ruthless. Truthfully, I'm almost worried."

"Well, I never joined forces with _fangirls,_" Nikki hissed.

"No," Marie mused. "You joined forces with actual psychopaths." This was true. Psychopaths made up a good chunk of Nikki's army, because psychopaths were aggressive and inventive, and thus made excellent soldiers of imagination. Even if they weren't so keen on orders.

"Better than fangirls."

Marie closed her eyes briefly. "Sometimes in life we must work with those we dislike. Working with anybody exposed so long to the Hub's effects is always difficult, but—"

"But nothing!" Nikki's eyes were wet, which was very strange, because she was pretty sure it didn't rain on the Hub. "They're…they're monsters! They only exist because we allow their wretched existences to continue! Fangirls killed father—how could you?"

Marie fiddled with a button on her coat.

Nikki rubbed her temples, trying to quash the burning behind her eyes. It was then that steely resolve shed the murky slime of affection and indecision. "Alright," she said coldly. "No more. This ends here. We kill you and proceed to destroy the rest of your headless forces. Simple and efficient. You're a fan of simple and efficient, right?"

Behind her, lightsabers powered up, swords were drawn, wands were brandished and guns were cocked. Marie took an involuntary step back. "You'd really commit matricide?" she asked, genuine shock leaking into her voice.

Nikki thought about it. The Fourth Wall under no circumstances could be allowed to fall. And there was duty to think about. She was charged with the protection and peacekeeping of the Hub, and eliminating the enemy leader was the easiest way to do that. And then there was the fact that Marie just wasn't very good at parenting, and Nikki not only held grudges, she nursed, cuddled and kept them lovingly near her heart at all times.

"Mmmmm, yeah. Yeah, I guess I would," she said. "You really should have attended that ballet recital. Oh, Jenna, since she's your mother, too—do you mind?"

"Not really," the girl replied. "She didn't attend my ballet recital, either."

"Wait," Aline said, tapping Nikki on the shoulder. "We _are _the good guys, right?" No one replied. "Right?"

Marie glanced between Jenna and Nikki, pale faced. "Just answer me this, Nicole—how do you expect to get past _them?_" She gestured to the still unmoving yaoi fangirls behind her. "They're not just here for decoration."

"Ah, yes, about that," said Nikki, finally allowing her smile to show. "They have a rather obvious flaw."

Marie looked blank, and decided not to bother with villainous boasting. "What flaw?"

"Ahem. Murtagh, Eragon? I assume you know what I imply?"

Murtagh grimaced and shuddered, subconsciously shrinking away from his half-brother. "Do we _really_ have—?"

"Yes."

He sighed again, mentally prepping himself with zero success. He looked left, then right, considered dancing the Hokey Pokey in case that would somehow help, and finally did the one thing his fangirls had wanted him to do for years:

Tackled Eragon to the ground and proceeded to—oh, just fill in your own details. Suffice to say it wasn't _quite_ M-rated, but close.

The effect was immediate. The yaoi fangirls were suddenly shrieking and squealing and hugging each other with joy. One produced popcorn from god-knew-where. Several canons clamped their hands over their ears in an attempt to block the onslaught of canine-frequency noise. Any lingering mutant plot bunnies that had remained hovering at the edge of the activity fled in terror. The horde was nearly stampeding. Somehow, confetti and balloons were showering from the non-ceiling. Amidst the chaos, Marie was listing all possible escape routes. Any direction was a long stretch of nothing, easily cut down by marksmen, and with her honor guard in disarray—

But wait! She could—no, that wouldn't work. She was doomed after all.

"This isn't fair," she complained, arms partially raised in a gesture of unconscious defense. "You're not supposed to find a way to defeat my trump card until the end."

"What is it that you've always told me?" Nikki put a pinky to the corner of her lips. "Something about life and how fair it is?" The canons that were not otherwise occupied with certain other activities advanced threateningly.

"Wait!" And by some odd miracle, they did.

Nikki grunted in annoyance. "Aline, can't this wait? This is kind of important."

"No, but that's the point," Aline said. "Am I the only one who thinks this is, you know, kind of absurd?"

"I know you're not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, but you're going to have to be a bit more specific."

"This whole situation!" Aline gestured around wildly. "None of it makes any sense! How is it that we got this convenient information all at once? How did the fact that you two were related manage to be concealed until the atmosphere was suitably dramatic? Why is nobody reacting appropriately?" As she spoke a few plot holes opened around the field, which she didn't notice. "And for that matter, how did you figure out the yaoi fangirls' weakness so quickly? Just betting it all on a guess?" Another plot hole. This one closer to the group.

Nikki looked around nervously, eyes darting between the girl, Marie, and the small pocket of chaos that was the yaoi fangirls. "Um, Aline—"

"And this back-story is very suspicious sounding to me. How would this timeline work out? And why is Jenna just standing there the whole time not really doing anything and not caring about the proceedings? Shouldn't she care at least a little? She's, like, eight! What's the point? This whole encounter seems contrived and ultimately pointless." Several more now. Nikki was beginning to seriously worry.

"Aline, shut—"

"I mean, for the love of god, we might as well be in a poorly written fanfic the way things are going!" And with gratuitously tasteless statement of fourth-wall-breakage, another half-dozen or so plot holes appeared. Several manifested in the same spot as some of the clumps of shrieking yaoi fangirls, causing them to disappear to some other unfortunate parameter of reality. Marie examined the unpleasantly greenish-mauve one that had appeared closest to her with relief.

"Girl has a good head on her shoulders," she said approvingly, and stepped into the plot hole partway through. "This isn't over, daughter. I _will _break the Fourth Wall. We _will _have freedom. Now for god's sake, get those boys to stop!" And with that, in a gesture of utmost unnecessary dramatics, she disappeared.

Besides the vaguely disappointed sound of weapons being powered down or stowed away and the sighs of the yaoi fangirls as Murtagh lurched away to go throw up and swallow several bars of soap, there was dead silence. Or at least terminally ill silence.

Nikki stared blankly at the spot where the plot hole had closed. It occurred to her that to be so heartless as to actually kill her mother would probably lose her enough Protagonist Points to make her death pointless in the long run, but she was still going to do something horrible to Aline before the day was out. Somewhere farther on she could hear the canons steadily dealing with the still-frazzled remnants of the squadron of yaoi fangirls, neutralizing when possible, killing when necessary. Well, that was the protocol, anyway. Canons, particularly male ones, had been harassed long enough to be unpredictable. But then, yaoi fangirls were only really dangerous with their reasoning intact. Not that yaoi fangirls would be allowed by the rest of the Hub to exist anywhere outside their little scraps of land once all this was over. After a while, she sighed, and turned to Aline. Perhaps some revenge would cheer her up.

"I'm giving you a ten second head start."

0000

Back at the trench, the area was mostly deserted. The nearest canon was Eragon, lying on a therapist's couch and babbling about his childhood to Sokka, who was wearing a beard and doodling on his notepad.

"It all started when I was five, I suppose," Eragon was saying. "There were these village boys who always followed me around. It didn't bother me until I turned thirteen, and suddenly I was having these _cravings, _and, and—" He fell silent, staring with empty eyes at the not-ceiling.

"I see," Sokka said sagely, stroking his beard. "And how does that make you feel?"

"It—it makes me feel—well, sad, and angry I suppose, but disgusted mostly, and I'm just so confused and—and—oh gods I'm so confused!"

"I'll just prescribe you some happy pills and we'll call it a day, shall we?" Sokka said, scribbling something in his notepad furiously. As a matter of fact, it was a very anatomically incorrect sketch of Pikachu. "NEXT!"

Nothing happened. Eragon started gibbering mindlessly and sobbing occasionally, but nothing _important_ happened.

Sokka coughed. "Ahem. Aang? I said NEXT!"

"Sorry Sokka!" A gust of wind blew through, scattering papers, blowing up dust, and more importantly, getting rid of Eragon in an energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly way.

On a more plot-related note, Nikki was relaying the situation while vainly trying to make herself look better in it.

D, to her credit, listened with a completely straight face.

"So let me get this straight," she began, clasping her hands together and leaning forward on the stool. "In the space of one chapter—"

"I'll have you know that it was two!"

"—alright, so you're telling me that in the space of _two _chapters, not only did the enemy leader escape, but the yaoi fangirls had to be defeated with spontaneous boylove, you managed to lose your composure a good five times or so, and newbface actually got a clue?"

Nikki nodded.

D sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "You people really are completely useless without me, aren't you."

"Stop being so maddeningly humble, would you?"

"Much obliged." D grinned. Her new rule was that she was allowed to grin once a day if the grin was sufficiently malicious, impish, or otherwise not entirely sincere.

Nikki got up and began to pace, saying half to herself, "This complicates matters, as you know. We can't defend the Fourth Wall—it's too vast, and if it goes down, it stays down. I don't know what she's thinking, putting it back up again once she's through…madness. All we can do is neutralize as many of them as possible." She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Not, as it seemed at first, a matter of throwing mooks at the enemy until you run out of mooks, then."

"Hm." D's eyes had taken on a distant look.

"The only real problem is…" Nikki ran a hand through her hair. "The only problem is that we have no idea _how _she plans to break the Fourth Wall. Goddammit. The only reason we had to go was to learn this kind of thing! Now I see why she revealed her yaoi fangirls so early. By learning about them, we forfeit the right to know what her actual plans are."

"Sounds pretty bleak," D agreed.

"Well, it doesn't matter," Nikki asserted. "We just need a military victory. Stop her physically from doing it. Capture, kill, whatever. No amount of teenage girls can overwhelm an army summoned from the whole of the multiverse. The creative energy on the Hub will only make our side stronger. We'll storm them and defeat them utterly. "

"Will we now," D said in a monotone.

"Of course!" Nikki replied enthusiastically.

"In that case, I'm sure you'll have lots of fun." D stood. "Tell Jackie to remember Rule One." With that, she nodded in acknowledgement, the third respectful thing she'd done that year, and walked away.

Nikki blanched and hurried after her. "You mean you won't fight?"

"Nope."

"But…you're you! I thought you lived for this sort of thing."

D stopped and spun around. "Nikki, I know better than anybody about uncomfortable truths, and the uncomfortable truth of the matter is that the first rule of living through wars is _not fighting in them._ Minor skirmishes? Tussles with rogue gangs of shippers? Sitting in our nice comfy trench and picking off stragglers? Sure, why not? A little violence never hurt anybody. But this is a war, what more, this is a war that we in all likelihood won't win without heavy casualties. I knew a guy once. He was good at war. Very good, in fact. But I haven't seen him in centuries, and besides, I'm a few thousand years too old for this. " D had been existing in one form or another long enough to forget the actual day she'd come into existence, and it was certainly more than a few thousand, so she mostly gave her age as five thousand. It was a good, solid number. But since it was extremely impolite to ask a lady her age, most people who actually did ended up punched in the face.

"You came here in the first place, didn't you?" Nikki pointed out.

"Correction," D said, lifting an annoyingly superior finger. "_You_ dragged me here and _I_ stayed out of, A. need for caffeine, and B. considerable fear for my life now that the order has disintegrated and I'm fair game to whoever wants revenge. I could have stayed in Aline's backwater dimension, but come on, that place was a real dump."

Nikki sagged slightly. "Come on. At least stay as an advisor. I can't handle my adorable demon spawn of a sister alone."

D grunted. "As much as I appreciate the blind admiration and snack deliverage, no. 'S not like anybody ever listens to me. It comes as part of the package of being the very essence of all things present and not wanted_—_nobody _ever_ listens. Bloody Trojans didn't listen. I told them the horse was a trick, I did, I bloody well told them, and look what happened to them!"

Nikki tried the puppy dog eyes. D flinched. "Stop that."

"Hah! I knew that trick worked!"

"No, I mean that there's something about your facial muscles that makes any and all attempts at looking cute and pitiable backfire into abject horror. Jasmine would be jealous."

Nikki acquiesced, her features settling back into a more natural annoyed expression, with good measure of pleading thrown in. "Please?"

D turned back around, unfathomable as ever. After a minute, she gave a sigh. "Fine. I'll be around. I'm always around. But I won't fight unless…unless there's a Code Blue-3."

Nikki smiled. She wasn't used to smiling genuinely, and as a result it came off as more of a grimace, but the sentiment was there all the same. "Then I hope you won't fight."

This rare moment of melodrama was interrupted, as they usually were, by Aline. She was dripping wet, bruised and covered with muck. She looked rather miffed, which in muted Aline-terms meant that she was livid.

"Hello," Nikki said brightly. "Did you need something?"

Aline breathed deeply for several seconds, nostrils flaring. She walked forward deliberately, fists clenched. "You—" She held up an accusatory finger, then let it drop.

"You—" Once again, the rest of the sentence failed to leave her mouth. After a few more tries, her jaw snapped shut and she glared mightily.

"You are unbelievable." With that, she stalked past them, muttering darkly.

D looked on with a puzzled expression. "So…what's up with newbface?"

Nikki shrugged, resembling her sister in how utterly innocent she looked. "No clue."


	9. Let's Play: Escape the Origin Story

0000

Chapter Eight

0000

The vampire Lestat leaned catlike against the wall, inclining his head skeptically. "So…what did you say your name was again?"

The other vampire—if he could be called that—fidgeted, chagrining. "Er, Edward Cullen."

"Ah, I see," Lestat said. "You're the one generating all the fangirls, correct? A few confronted me the other day, claiming I didn't measure up to you as a vampire. They were absolutely _delicious."_

Edward grimaced, his Adonis-like face twisting with chagrin. "Don't remind me."

"Don't worry about it," the other reassured, casual again. "Vampires are natural fangirl attractors." He looked contemplative, chewing his lip. "Well, except Nosferatu. Not even eHarmony could help him." He shook his head sadly. "But, truly, such an _honor_ to meet the most famous vampire of the decade. I just have to confirm one rumor, though…"

"Yes?" Edward said with chagrin.

Lestat leaned in. "Is it true…that you sparkle?"

Edward gritted his teeth, clearly chagrined. "Yes."

Immediately, Lestat burst into wild laughter, almost doubling over with the force of it. "I knew it!" he crowed, clutching his stomach. "Hey, Carmilla, Alucard! Come over here, it turns out he _does _sparkle!"

"Seriously?"

"No shit?"

"Yeah!"

"Hey!" Edward chagrined, stomping his foot. "My girlfriend thinks it's totally hot!"

Lestat was still snickering, completely incapable of stopping. "Right, girlfriend, heh, heh. I'm sorry, friend, but any man who sparkles has to be at least as gay as I am."

"Wait, _what?"_

"Hah, and they called me a fairy!"

Edward sputtered. "Well, you—"

"Ahem." Said ahem was accompanied by a dull _thunk _sound usually associated with heavy boots descending ominously to the ground.

The vampires—and vaguely vampiresque fairy—fell silent, muscles instinctually coiling to spring. Dark eyes swept the scene, surveying the vampires, sparkly fairy thing, and the subject they were supposedly guarding.

"Interesting." D's voice was both soft and reminiscent of impossibly sharp knives at the same time. "And here I thought you were supposed to be on guard duty."

No one made a sound. Aline hovered uncertainly behind D, wondering why Edward was in a tutu.

"What's going on here?"

"Edward was being lampooned," a blonde vampire of undefined nature volunteered.

An eyebrow quirked. "Really now. I wonder for what. Speaking of, why exactly is he…? You know what, never mind. Carry on." The vampires and sparkly fairy creature parted to reveal a looming cave mouth. D strode forward purposefully. Aline hesitated, glancing around the various bloodsucking monsters (plus Edward). She bit her lip, then turned to him.

"Um, dude?" she said, gesturing to the sequined, bright pink tutu. "Why are you wearing that thing?"

"What thing?" Edward asked blandly.

"Newbface!" a voice like icy razors yelled from the darkness of the cave. "Get your skinny teenage backside over here."

After a moment's pause, the girl traipsed after her into the cave, blinking in bemusement. Well, she supposed, it never actually said he _wasn't_ wearing a tutu. Makes sense.

D was fiddling with her flamethrower. The flamethrower was quite a famous weapon, akin to other such renown instruments of destruction like Death's Scythe, Excalibur, or the Super Hyper Ultra Shark Launcher, and aptly named device that launched sharks at the target—super hyper ultra sharks, in fact. It had a long and bloody history, reducing great monuments to ash, setting great cities aflame, the screams of the countless burning thousands still engraved in its memory. It was known by many names, among them the Ash Giver, the Bringer of a Thousand Screams, the Burninator, the Unquenchable Flame, Everlasting Tormentor and most recently, Jeremy. It was said that it had a mind of its own, traveling from owner to owner, leaving each one aflame as it left them. And sometimes, if you listened carefully, you could almost hear laughter, strange, crackly laughter like a campfire on a quiet night.

D knew none of this. It spewed fire, it had done so reliably for the past several decades, and that was good enough for her.

Dials snapped into place and the numbers on its side reconfigured. The cave, a dreary, damp, and overall uninteresting place, lit up with warm orange light.

"It's been modified," D said to Aline. "Nice, eh?"

Aline examined it dubiously. It was rather battered looking, your average flamethrower apart from the dials, one of which was currently set to Torch, but could also be set to Candle, Campfire, Bonfire, Forest Fire and I Want To Watch The World Burn. She didn't trust it. It seemed to be looking at her…

"It's a bit…underwhelming," Aline admitted.

D shot her a look. _She _liked Jeremy just fine. In response, she cranked the dial and squeezed the trigger. The resultant firestorm filled the space with roaring blue flames, blasting down the passageway like angry dragon's breath. Aline lurched backwards, landing firmly on her behind, arms raised to protect her face.

D returned it to torch form, filling the cave with much friendlier light. "Shall we go on or do you want to change your underwear first?" she snapped. No one insulted her Jeremy.

Aline attempted to get up, only to have her knees buckle. "I think I'll just lie here and hyperventilate instead, thank you," she said tremulously. D snorted, and Aline found herself for the second time in so many hours being half-dragged half-led across a cavern by a lunatic.

"Remind me why I agreed to this?" Aline asked, wiggling out of D's iron grip.

"Because the plot said so, that's why."

"Aha!" Aline cried. "Now, normally, I would ask what you meant by that, but now I know better! If I say anything, something will explode or knock me out or worse. So I _won't! _So…hah, hah!_"_

"That's nice," D said.

Several seconds passed in silence. In the presence of Aline, a few seconds was the most you were likely to get.

"I still don't know what we're doing here," Aline griped.

D sighed and gritted her teeth. "Look, if you're going to—"

"All I'm saying," Aline interrupted, putting her hands up defensively, "is that if you're going to drag me into a cave against my will, I should at least know _why."_

"It's dramatic storytelling," D said exasperatedly. "Just go with it. And anyway, you're you. So just shut up and keep walking. We're here to test a theory, alright?"

Aline's pout was so pronounced you could almost hear it. "You," she said, "are not very nice."

"Yeah, well, you spend five thousand years or so existing for the purpose of being carefully ignored and we'll see how nice you turn out," D muttered darkly.

"Wait—five thousand—_what_ now?"

D stopped. As per the laws of comedic physics, Aline bumped into her from behind. "Damn. I said that out loud, didn't I?" D said. She glared at the ceiling. "This is the part where I tell my origin story, isn't it? Oh, bugger. I knew this was coming." She spun around, pointing an accusing finger at the nearest solid body, which was Aline. "Well, I'm not having any truck with it! I've got better things to do than tell my personal business to backwater dimension girls who don't even deserve the title of main character!"

"Like hanging around in caves for some vaguely specified plot-related reason?" Aline asked.

"Yeah, like that!"

"But that's so unconventional," Aline blurted in a rare moment of canniness. She found that the more she thought of her life as a fictional story, the easier it was to get along. "You _always _tell the origin story. That's how it goes. The book said so." She flaunted the Cliché Compendium, which had continued to withstand all forms of abuse and absentmindedness.

D waved a hand impatiently. "I wrote the damn thing, or most of it. If anybody knows how full of bullshit I am, it's me."

Aline looked at the Cliché Compendium. Then she looked at D. She looked back at the Cliché Compendium. She looked at the page which designated the author as one Deborah Rutherford. She looked back at D.

The idea of D having a name did not mesh at all with Aline's idea of D.

"So if you wrote it," she said slowly, "then the others are—"

"In the dedication? The Four Horsemen of Uncomfortable Truths."

"Uh?"

"The Four Horsemen, or Horsepersons if you want to be all _new age_ and junk, of Uncomfortable Truths. That was us. Riding forth on our steeds of very strongly worded memos, wielding flaming baseball bats, bringing forth that sinking feeling, that doomed acknowledgement, that horrible realization of reality…!" D sighed, reminiscing. "The good old days. All alone now, though. Everybody else buggered off in one way or another. Creative differences, they said. Wanted to form a barbershop quartet, they said. Absolutely no commitment to the cause. Bloody disgraceful, it was." She made a _tch _sound. "Idiotic, too. Everybody knows you need four people for a barbershop quartet."

"…," said Aline

"But I stayed," D said forcefully, angry in a vague way. Her eyes were a million miles away. "Somebody had to do the job. Not the original job, of course; we needed four for that. I think I'll call it the Barbershop Principal, ought to add that to the newest edition. But Uncomfortable Truths in general, sure. Frank appraisals, crazy old relatives, skeletons in closets, weaknesses, things we'd rather forget and would if not for me…somebody had to, you see," she said matter-of-factly. "No point in life otherwise. It'd get dull with everybody running around being content with their lives and random bouts of misfortune being the only thing balancing things out. Dreadfully dull. Cosmic importance and all. Yes. Something like that. That's what they told me."

There was a pause. The fog in D's eyes lifted, and she blinked. Then, "Oh, I see what you did there!" she yelled at the ceiling in her normal tone of voice. "Trying to shanghai me into it, are you?"

"Er—"

"Not you," D said irritably. "_Her._ Thinks she can make me demean my character, does she? To hell with that. This stops now! No more origin stories! Author or not, I refuse!"

"Who the hell are you—"

"Well this is just bloody great. Now I'll have people running around sympathizing with me and junk. Just fan-fucking-tastic."

"If it's any consolation," Aline said. "_I_ still think you're a rude, pushy, paranoid and generally unlikable individual."

D glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. "Do you mean that?"

"Yeah," Aline said sincerely.

"Good. And don't you forget it."

They squinted into the gloom. The darkness ahead of them wasn't normal darkness. The light didn't pierce it, just slid off of it to the side where there wasn't anything interesting to look at. Tendrils of pure ominium writhed in the shadows, twisting and snatching at their ankles. (Ominium is a substance the Cliché Compendium described thusly: _An element of pure ominousness. It is the color of blindness and smells exactly like fear. And we mean real fear, not that panicky, sweaty, diluted fear you get nowadays. Natural ominium deposits are found in bat-infested caverns, old abandoned warehouses, paintings with eyes that follow you around the room, high schools, and in the general vicinity of any bald man wearing a suit and dark glasses. Ominium is valued by evil overlords and Republicans for the paving and embellishment of their Evil Fortresses of Evil, and when woven into long dark trench coats causes them to billow out dramatically even if there's no wind. Ominium is highly reactive and attracts mysterious old men in gray cloaks.) _

"Are you afraid of the dark?" D asked.

"No," Aline said. "But I _am _afraid of things that hide in it."

"Then you won't like this next part." D extinguished the flamethrower, plunging the room into darkness. Aline knew that somewhere far behind them there was the natural—well, as natural as you got on the Hub—light flooding into the cave entrance, but at the moment she was having some difficulty believing that light actually existed and was not merely a fanciful myth invented by the foolishly optimistic.

D kept walking.

Hmm. Alone in the dark or alone in the dark with D?

"Come _on!"_

D it was.

On the other side of the suffocating wall of darkness was a much less impenetrable sort of darkness, along with what looked like a Perfectly Ordinary wooden chest. It was a very normal looking chest. It was made of wood, had hinges, a lock, and a lid. It was time-worn, the wood smooth and faded, the brass embellishments having taken on a patina of age. A Perfectly Ordinary wooden chest.

Which was why it was difficult to explain why it was the most menacing thing Aline had ever seen.

The ominium clustering around it didn't help.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a hooded grey figure emerged.

"Who dares trespass into the lair of the accursed? Who dares presume on the hospitality of The Keeper?" it rasped.

"Me," said D. "And this fine specimen of the human race here is Alice. Allison. One of those."

"And what," it said, "is your business here?"

D tapped a foot impatiently. "We're here to meet George Clooney, why do you _think?_ The Writer's Blocks, you overdramatic twit."

"That's George Clooney?" Aline asked, puzzled.

"Foolish fools!" The grey-clad figure cackled, stooping as his ragged-nailed fingers curled. "Have you no knowledge of the forces you trifle with? For your impudence, the darkness shall devour your immortal souls, leaving you as nothing but husks, your spirits sent screaming into a dimension of infinite pain, the—"

D sighed. "Fred, knock it off. You're not fooling anybody."

A moment's pause. Then, "Very well," the figure said huffily, straightening and throwing back its hood. As it turned out, the person inside the cloak was not, in fact, a crazy old man, but rather a graying forty-something. His eyes were not, as it had appeared, burning with madness, but a serious pale grey. His beard was not long and unkempt, but neatly trimmed.

He coughed politely.

"So, you're here for the Writer's Blocks?" Fred said, abandoning the eldritch rasp for a clipped, businesslike tone. "I was under the impression that they were useless here."

"It's true," D agreed, "that Writer's Blocks are the most volatile substances on this world, causing instant cessation of existence in creatures of imagination and severe sickness, nosebleeds, and occasional spontaneous combustion in their facilitators. It's true," she continued, "that shadowy figures in distant underground chambers make prophecies concerning them. It's also true that they are annoyingly heavy to carry around." She paused to allow the readers to digest the exposition. "But I've looked into it, and am about sixty-seven percent sure that Aline could utilize them without spontaneously combusting."

"Um. About that spontaneous combustion part," Aline began. "I can't say I'm too keen on it."

Fred turned his piercing eyes to her. "And you're a writer, are you?"

D snorted. "Her? A writer? Certainly not. Writers write, and she's been neglecting that particular part of authorship. Still, only creators survive here, and she wasn't atomized immediately upon arrival. If anything, Writer's Blocks would have an inverse effect on her." The confidence in her voice faded slightly. "But then again, main character or not, I could be totally wrong and she'd just suffer the gruesome death and/or nosebleed upon contact. You never know, especially since those who've abandoned the art rarely come here. But that is a risk we'll just have to take."

"I can't say I'm looking forward to the gruesome death, either," Aline said, her voice suddenly an octave higher than normal.

Fred stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Well, let's see." He kicked the trunk. It banged open, revealing a trove of small, dense cubes of matter. Their aura made Aline want to run away very, very quickly, at the same time rooted her to the spot, their hypnotic dark glow trapping her.

"Y—you can't possibly expect me to—" she stuttered.

"Well, we _do_, and the plot says so. Right here in the script, see? So go on. Pick one up." Arguing with D was much like trying to push back a slow-moving locomotive—you were welcome to try, but eventually it was going to get its way.

Aline picked one up. It was small. It was cube shaped. It was slightly shiny. It was also disproportionately heavy, impossible dark, and would have been literally leeching joy and love from the surrounding area if it had been even slightly more malignant.

"Nothing overtly horrible is happening," Fred noted. "That's a good sign."

"I would make a snarky comment about that statement, O Mighty Fred, but I feel as though it would be too easy. Well, newbface? How about it?"

Aline's pupils had narrowed to pinpricks. She looked paler than usual and beads of sweat were standing out on her forehead, but she knew none of this. Reality bent away from her. She was standing still, but felt as though she was hurtling through space at the speed of light.

The first thing she said was, "Guh."

She second thing she said was, "I feel like my liver ate my stomach and my lungs are taking turns beating each other up while my heart is trying to escape through my esophagus."

D blinked. "That's an interesting description."

Aline, however, was not finished. She sunk to the floor, still babbling vivid prose. It was probably a description of a sunset, though you could hardly tell due to the fact that she insisted on describing it in terms of gemstones and flowers.

"Interesting." D scribbled herself a note about the next edition of the Compendium. "On the bright side, we now have a sizable advantage over the enemy in terms of heavy weaponry. On the other hand, Newbface here will have to be trained in their use and shown how not to end up killing everyone, by people who can't actually do it themselves. Fantastic." She massaged her forehead with her knuckles.

"Well?" Fred said. "Will you be taking it or not?"

D nodded. "Will you want the trunk back later?" she asked, dragging Aline to her feet. The Writer's Block slid from her fingers, landing with a dull, flat thud, and the bouts of creative metaphor receded.

Aline's head was still ringing with the aftereffects. D's eyes weren't black, she thought, they were _abyssal pools of pure obsidian, _and the cave wasn't dark and damp, it was a _subterranean crevice of shadowy corners and dripping liquids_, Fred wasn't slightly creepy, he was—

"He'll find his way back when he's needed," Fred replied. "He's yours for now." He bent to the trunk, laying a hand on it.

"Now, Trunkie," he told it. "Go with them, and remember to only maim when necessary. They're our friends."

_This man is completely insane_, was what Aline was going to think. Well, the translation of what she was going to think—what she actually was about to think was rather longer and dressier. She got as far as _this man_when the trunk lifted and closed its lid in what could only be taken as a gesture of affirmation, grew hundreds of little legs, and—for lack of a better word—_sauntered _to D in the same exact way trunks normally didn't.

"Guh?" said Aline.

"Wonderful place, the Discworld," D commented. "Great souvenirs. Now come on, we've got ass to kick."

"I'm not sure if my mother wants me kicking ass" was the translated version of what Aline said. "But alright."


	10. We Might As Well Call This Part Two

0000

Chapter Nine

0000

"…since we'll be facing astounding numbers with unknown weaponry, and them having the strategic advantage and all—"

"Uh-huh."

"—we're going to have to employ some kind of decisive technique, in this case, the fact that teenage girls are largely slaves to their hormones. We call it Operation: BISHIE. It's an acronym, we just don't know what for yet. Makes a good acronym, though, wouldn't you say?"

"Sure."

"All we have to do is strategically place hot bishies willing to kiss each other, or at least willing to kiss each other for bribes and mouthwash, preferably actual homosexuals. We'll also have bishies just standing their being bishies for the less yaoi-inclined, and have the rest of the forces move in, effectively crippling their army—"

"Cool."

"—so once we get the infantry in line and sort out the battalion commanders, we can attack at midnight and attempt to capture Marie when her army is weakened. Well, a rough approximation of midnight, anyway. Since we don't know how exactly she plans to bring down the Wall, we will have to be swift, and interrogate her posthaste." Nikki rolled up the unnecessarily fancy scroll and cleared her throat. "What do you think?"

Jenna stroked Fluffy's fur (she was actually raking her fingernails through his lack-of-fur as a persisting reminder that he was not to entertain any notions of escape, but nonetheless) and kicked her feet. "It's a nice battle plan and everything," she said, "but why are you telling it to _me?_"

Nikki deflated. "Because nobody else wanted to listen to it after the third time," she mumbled. "Oh, by the way, before I forget—D told me to tell you to remember Rule One."

Jenna nodded, then frowned. "Hmm."

Nikki's curiosity got the best of her. "What's Rule One?"

"Ooh, that depends. Which Rule One?"

"There's more than one Rule One?"

"Uh-huh!" Jenna said brightly. "D says that all the rules had to be remembered, and if she gave them numbers then I'd think some were less important. So they're all Rule One. There's a Rule One that says to run away very fast from little bald crinkly old smiling men telling me to try to hit them," she counted off on her fingers. "Another says to never get involved in a land war in Asia. Then there's the rule that says to not talk about Fight—um, never mind. Maybe she meant the first Rule One she mentioned, which is never to bother her when she's on her break."

"Right," Nikki said slowly. "Maybe."

"Hey, where is she, by the way?"

D had wandered back into base toting a severely brain-addled and still mumbling Aline, told them to have fun dealing with their new super weapon, pointed at Aline and the animate trunk following her, and left again, muttering to herself in a way that suggested caffeine overdose had finally gotten her. No one had seen her since. "Uh," Nikki said. "On break."

"Oh." Jenna pouted. "She was going to teach me the evil eye. It's supposed to make grown men cry on sight."

Nikki looked at her. Where D was the personification of all things grey, dismal and world weary, Jenna, much to her chagrin, remained staunchly in the territory of happy bunnies and unicorns skipping through fields of flowers. Never mind the fact that the bunnies were probably heartless killers with a taste for human blood and the unicorns probably spent their time goring people with their conveniently-placed horns, and the flowers were actually cleverly disguised carnivorous poppies designed to first numb and then devour any unlucky sod who wandered into the field.

"Good luck with that," she said encouragingly. "Now then, about Aline—"

"Who?"

"Our underdog."

Jenna remained uncomprehending.

"The stringy nervous girl? Carries a book? Probably some kind of small rodent in a past life?"

The blank stare melted away. "Oh! So she's…_not _a random wanderer?"

"I know, I know. But, y'see, she may _look _like the kind of useless load we keep around as the audience surrogate, but she is, after all, the underdog. Not to mention her apparently singular ability to use Writer's Blocks without dying painfully is actually kinda sorta useful." Jenna did not seem to be getting it. "Meaning we would want her around when the shit hits the fan," Nikki prompted. Jenna just rolled her eyes as if she really didn't see how, but was going to humor her.

"So, seeing as I have an army to whip into shape, please make sure she doesn't do anything stupid in the meantime." Nikki paused. "And by anything stupid, I mean anything, period."

"Uh-huh," Jenna said, dragging her fingernails through Fluffy's ragged fur again. "You realize that you're asking your ten-year-old sister to babysit a teenager, right?"

Nikki was silent for a moment. "Yep," she replied. "See to it, would you?"

Jenna sighed as another conspicuously convenient explosion drew Nikki away. She held up Fluffy to arm's length and asked, "What do you think? Wander around the trench looking for whatsherface, or stay here and do better things with our time?"

"Please, destroy me," said Fluffy, his sad yellow eyes shimmering behind half-closed lids. His ears seemed to be drooping—all of him seemed to be, actually. "I do not wish to exist any longer."

"Yeah," Jenna agreed, thoughtful, "You're right. She's probably just sitting around somewhere feeling sorry for herself."

"I beg of you, have mercy!" Fluffy pleaded in a surprisingly deep voice for a rabbit. "I haven't done anything to deserve this! Grant me oblivion, terrible one. Have pity."

"You're so cute," Jenna cooed. "Now come on, it's time for your experimental growth hormones."

0000

Aline sat on the trunk with her knees brought up to her chest feeling sorry for herself.

Like most suburban middle-class teenagers, feeling sorry for herself was a hobby she often engaged in. In fact, self-pity is ranked as the third most popular sport among teenagers (surpassed by obnoxious whining and basketball, just barely breaking even with iPod worship, the fastest-growing religion in her home dimension).

Aline was among the top in the world. While her levels of _My life just blows_ and _No one understands me _were about average, there was just something about her that made her a self-pitying genius. Perhaps it was the unfortunate combination of genes that contrived to make her features seem on the edge of tears even when she was smiling. Perhaps it was her general inability to be useful and likable. Perhaps it was the same essential Alineness that made posters and house plants sag in defeated misery in her presence, the very same Alineness that made most people simply not notice her and forget her existence within seconds if they did. Perhaps it was all these things, but somehow, without even knowing it, she currently held a total of forty-five trophies for the International Self-Pity Slalom, more than anybody else in her home dimension.

Starving diseased orphans in brutal war-torn countries weren't allowed in official competitions, naturally.

At the moment, Aline was engaging in some of the finest self-pity she had ever accomplished.

It was in the way her lower lip protruded just about enough to trip over when walking. It was in the way her eyes were shiny with unshed tears, somehow only altering her normal facial structure only slightly. It was in the curled up fetal position she was in, although in fairness, she was in such a position due to the fact that she was convinced that Trunkie would gnaw her legs off if she wasn't careful. Since it—he?—had been following her relentlessly, she decided the best way to avoid it was to huddle on top of it, under the assumption that trunks didn't have any natural aerial predators and wouldn't think to look for her there.

Once upon a time, she knew, she would have found that sort of thinking strange.

Trapped in the wrong dimension, the only sane woman in a sea of loonies, terrified of a bloody _trunk_, pushed around by ten year olds, not respected even as the only person able to use a weapon of awesome destructive power, told to shut up more times than she could count, Aline was beginning to feel a little bit put out.

She tried to think positively.

There was the fact that the Writer's Blocks had stopped affecting her creativity after a while. She didn't feel the need to describe anything in terms of barely comprehensible metaphor, nor use gemstones in place of colors, though she still had the slight inclination to refer to eyes as orbs. That was something.

Aline thought about the positives some more. Nothing came to mind, and the negatives were starting to jostle for room. For example, she'd just been threatened with death again, this time by a pair of element-oriented teenagers who were apparently very tired of hearing that they looked cute together.

Out of nowhere, a thought: _why should I have to put up with this?_

This was not a thought people like Aline normally had. People like Aline did things by convincing themselves they didn't need to be done. People like Aline sat quietly in the background keeping their minds off things until whatever was going on had ended and the world was safe again. People like Aline tried not to think dangerous questions too loudly in case somebody heard and answered. When people like Aline had traitorous thoughts like _why should I have to put up with this?, _they hurriedly stuffed them into the depths of their sock drawers and went to bed early.

She straightened. Yeah, she thought, why _do_ I have to put up with this?

The thought was louder this time, more deliberate, and heedless of any passing mind readers. She was feeling brave at the moment, so she risked speaking it aloud. "Why should I have to put up with this?" She had intended for it to come out an angry and indignant shout, but a lifetime spent as a doormat caused it to leave her throat as a vaguely annoyed mutter.

Nobody came running up to her demanding she stop immediately. Heartened, she stood up, balancing on Trunkie's lid, crossed her arms and tried again. "Why should I have to put up with this?" Better this time, louder, with much more impressive levels of anger and indignity, but she felt she could do better.

She stood up, wobbling only slightly._" Why should I have to put up with this?"_ she demanded of the unsky.

When it gave no answer, the disreputable part of her mind that you didn't want to roam after dark supplied: _you don't._

"That's right!" she announced. "I don't! I damn well don't!" Aline laughed, drunk on something alien and exhilarating. _Why should I have to put up with this _invited his friends_ I won't stand for it _and _I could do something _over for drinks and foosball. Thoughts like these found themselves on top fifty lists with titles like 'Most Likely To Get You Killed'. Cliché Compendium warns that '_having and—god forbid—acting on any of these thoughts will in all likelihood result in death, decapitation, character development, and awe-inspiring life lessons. Possibly all four, though not necessarily in that order'._

Aline wondered what not having to put up with it entailed.

When she came up with nothing, the shadier side of her cerebrum suggested that she leave.

_Leave what?_ the rest of Aline questioned.

_The trench, you bloody idiot_, it said.

A long pause, then: "Yeah," she said slowly. "I could, couldn't I?"

She staunchly ignored the bemused voice of Common Sense wondering when he'd been replaced by Principle.

"Right," Aline muttered, sliding off of the trunk and scowling. "Come into my universe and drag me into this mess, will they? Think they can just walk all over me, do they? Well, I'll show them! I will! Right, Trunkie?"

In a wooden way, Trunkie seemed to agree.

"Exactly! I could handle it out there. I've been out there, what, three times now? Four?I can handle it easy. And I'll be away from here. That'll show them, won't it? See how they get on without their underdog."

Trunkie opened its lid and slammed it shut again in what seemed to be an affirmative way.

"Right then! Moving onwards!" She took a few decisive steps toward the wall, only to stop suddenly, remembering. After a few trial-and-error attempts to get Trunkie to open ("Open Sesame" was apparently cliché enough to suffice), she stuffed a few in her pockets. Upon contact, she got off a few extremely witty lines of dialogue before the tolerance set in and she was left scrolling through creative adjectives under her breath. She managed only a few more steps before Trunkie stood up on hundreds of little legs and attempted to follow her.

"Er," she said, looking at it helplessly. She shifted uncomfortably and took a few more steps. She waved vaguely at it. "Shoo."

It stopped dead. It snapped its lid in a betrayed manner.

"Look, it's been nice," she said. "But I'd really rather set off alone. Nothing personal," she added in a murmur.

It stared at her mournfully, insofar as it had eyes with which to stare. Eventually, it shuffled off sadly, leaving hundreds and hundreds of little footprints in its wake. Aline found herself feeling vaguely guilty.

"Right," Aline muttered again. She suddenly remembered about the other weight in her pocket—the Compendium. For reasons she could not fully explain, she extracted it and looked at it for several moments. Whatever ambient light could exist in this world reflected off of its leafing, the gleaming gold mocking her. She ran a finger over the exquisitely thin pages. It was a beautiful volume. This was not a book to be tossed aside lightly.

No, she thought, hefting it. Not lightly at all.

With all the strength she could muster, she threw it down the length of the trench. It bounced twice, coming to a stop spine up some ten yards away, its beautiful spine facing the unsky, its thin pages creasing and folding under its weight. Dust that had not been there until something had come along to kick it up began to settle on it.

"And don't come back!" she yelled hoarsely and vaulted herself over the wall and out into the empty expanse in a move that wouldn't have been possible if she'd be one iota less righteously indignant.

It didn't.

It wouldn't for a while.

0000

It was a dark and stormy night.

"Actually, it was quite cloudless, and it was early morning with all the street lamps lit, so it wasn't _dark, _per se."

Shut up. It was still pretty dark.

"It was a reasonably dim and cloudless morning, then."

Yes, _fine._ It was a reasonably dim and cloudless morning. The relative dramatic quality of the event was not lessened, so it doesn't matter.

In a dark alley somewhere in the less reputable part of Belfast, a swirling cyan vortex appeared a few feet from the ground. It went, _fwoosh. _From within its mysterious depths, a shadowed figure streaked through, landing on the ground with an aerial flip and a solid landing. Or at any rate, that was the intent; in reality, the figure attempted this, lacked the necessary inertia for any flipping whatsoever, let alone of the aerial variety, and ended up flopping onto the ground like a wet fish.

"Goddammitto fucking_ hell," _the figure muttered, brushing itself off and rubbing the sore spot on which it landed. It glanced from side to side shiftily, unseen eyes gleaming. Having satisfied itself that nobody had spotted it, though why precisely being spotted would be a setback was unclear, the figure shoved its hands in its pockets and left the alley.

A bloated moon hung low on the horizon, casting long, spidery shadows. The figure's long coat blew out slightly behind it in a suitably darkly impressive manner. It wore a hat. It was a very nice hat. More importantly, it obscured the figure's face when it inclined its head.

It was all very noir.

Unseen in the shadows but ever-present nonetheless, D strode forward with rather more confidence than she felt.

In the Hub, war was brewing. Skirmishes and minor battles had been popping up occasionally, had been since as long as she could remember, but soon all-out body-piling carnage would begin. D should have been there, however little she savored the idea of even temporary death. If nothing else, she _had _promised.

D knew she was playing right into that damned author's hands, doing this sentimental junk. She knew it wasn't logical in the least—the people she sought couldn't possibly turn the tide of the battle significantly enough to warrant the kind of duty-shirking she was engaging in, especially since she didn't even know what state she'd find them in. It wasn't even in the plot, the ever-loving bloody _plot_ that popped up whenever that stringy kid was around.

The sun was just breaking over the horizon in an arguably extremely symbolic manner. D stopped to look at it, because it seemed like the kind of thing you ought to do.

She could already hear Nikki talking her ear off when she got back. But what could you do? If the Fourth Wall went down, the worlds would be in flux—and this was family.


	11. Things of Varying Descriptions Happen

0000

Chapter Ten

0000

The problem with feisty (however briefly) young heroines going out on their own to prove their independence in a fit of righteous indignity is that they always, invariably fail.

If the Cliché Compendium had been on hand, it might have made a snarky comment on the subject.

If Aline had been around to read said snarky comment, she might have angrily tossed it over her shoulder and muttered, well, what the hell did _it _know, anyway?

It should have been easy. By the nature of the Hub's bizarre temporal unphysics, biological cycles were disrupted, which is a fancy way of saying that there was no need to eat or drink or otherwise acknowledge ones existence as a meaty skinbag of assorted squishy bits. And it wasn't like she'd never been out there before. Admittedly, the only time she was alone, it wasn't for very long, and it was only because she was sure terrible things would happen at the hands of Nikki if she didn't run, but still! What did that mean? Nothing! Nothing at all!

Aline wandered. Around her, the wide expanse yawned and swallowed her in the emptiness.

Attempts to open a plot hole had proved both unsuccessful and pointless. Nikki had mentioned that there was a technique to it; catching a rift in the plot continuum or something. Aline had spent several minutes puzzling over what that meant, if anything at all, and eventually deciding that it didn't matter anyway. Plot holes could lead anywhere, even if she did manage to open one in a fit of accidental logic like she had in the meeting with Marie. She could end up in just about any time, place, or world, and it occurred to her that her own specific time, place and world were frighteningly singular.

Perhaps she could find the enemy camp and convincing them she was an absolutely _huge _Zutara shipper and could definitely help out if only somebody could let her pop into her own universe for just a second to grab some of her things?

She considered it. She recalled the time she mentioned the word Zutara to the people it concerned.

Perhaps not, she thought, glancing at the scalded skin and icicle wounds on her arms.

Aline sat down and sighed. The ground was neither cool nor warm, nor truly there at all. It existed only as something to prevent people from falling through it.

"I really didn't think this through," she said. By all rights, there shouldn't have been an echo owing to the lack of anything to echo against, but there was anyway. It was just more dramatic that way.

_Well, no _shit_, Sherlock,_ Common Sense bit out moodily.

Shut up, she thought at it.

She flopped onto her back. Staring at the unsky was unnerving, so she tried to avert her eyes only to find that there was nothing to avert them to.

She sighed again, blowing a wayward lock of hair away from her face.

About there was when it started to get weird.

When you take the creativity of the entire multiverse and stuff it into a mostly unremarkable flat plane, the fictional refugees of the other worlds, and hordes of screaming girls, strange things happen. Fueled by little more than belief, the raw force of creativium and a few stolen atoms from some other universes, they begin to manifest—thus, anthropomorphic personifications, among other things like plot bunnies and their corrupted cousins.

They change. Spending too much time on the endless plane of the Hub…_stretches_ you. What part is stretched is generally not your choice. It might sharpen your wit, or it might turn you into a raving lunatic whose only devotion in life is the technically nonexistent. Sometimes, in places where the creativity is thick enough, it inverts in on itself and collapses, forming small, dense cubes of matter known as Writer's Blocks. Most don't survive the Hub's atmosphere and are instead booted to a random other world, where at least one scruffy young man will suddenly be scrambling to meet a deadline and wondering how the well of words could suddenly dried up.

And of course, sometimes things will happen that nobody can explain even with the longest stretch of imagination. It was generally accepted that this was the way of things, and those interested in retaining some scraps of sanity oughtn't question them.

This was an attitude that would not bring Aline the slightest comfort in the coming hours.

0000

D stopped in front of a seedy pub. There was a neon sign above it, flickering weakly in green and yellow. The sign probably said something like 'Food, Fun and Beer', but most of the letters had burned out, and it now read 'Fo f a er'. She wondered why it wasn't spelling out something more fitting to the situation and remember that she was no longer on the Hub.

She glanced at the scrap of paper in her hands. Her memory was as perfect as having one as long as hers would allow, but doubt was starting to creep into her mind. This was the address alright. It troubled her that any of the old lot would wind up _here,_ but in hindsight, she knew it probably shouldn't.

With a sigh, she pushed open the door.

The inside of the place looked exactly like one would expect it to from the outside; decrepit, cramped, smelling of whiskey and despair. A listless bartender wiped a shot glass with a filthy rag. It was dark and sparsely populated, yet somehow still managing to be crowded.

Amazing, thought D, how far the influence of the Hub could stretch.

No one noticed her. No one ever noticed D in bars. They went in to escape her in the bottoms of glasses, and never noticed her slipping in after them. D didn't mind this. It was her nature. Sure, it made conversation a bit lacking, and forget about picking up men, but at least you weren't bothered much. She seated herself in corner and scanned the room.

Drunk men. Miserable men. Two women trying to prove that one didn't really need more than a few scraps of fabric to be clothed. A very interestingly shaped stain on the ceiling. A dart board, holes dotting the wall around it. A skinny haggard man sitting near her suddenly sobbed and stumbled out, tearing at his hair. Being around D did that to people if she wasn't careful. She paid it no attention.

There. Was that him? Red haired and burly. But he looked different somehow, if that was indeed him. She'd have to wait and see.

She didn't have to wait long. It was hardly ten minutes before the red-haired man had somehow managed to offend the shaved gorilla next to him. The gorilla was quite drunk, and the redhead wasn't exactly sober either. The gorilla inquired as to what the redhead's issue was, to which the redhead replied with a question of the gorilla's sexual orientation, and implied that he liked to wear women's clothing. Watching grown, muscled men act like middle-schoolers was amusing until somebody got hurt—namely, the redhead. His first punch missed so badly D couldn't be sure where he was aiming for. The gorilla didn't waste any time.

D winced. Right in the solar plexus.

The redhead attempted to get up, and failed, whether from injury or inebriation. Luckily the gorilla seemed to have lost interest, and went back to gazing at the bottom of his glass with a grunt.

Yes. That was him alright. Expression arranged with practiced expertise into smarmy condescension, she went to his side and crossed her arms, looking down at him. He remained blearily staring at the ceiling.

She waited. She waited a bit longer. She kicked him. "Oi. You. Get up."

He groaned, blinking blearing. "Whuh? Who?"

"I said _get up. _Lazy swine, can't even recognize old friends anymore."

He blinked for several seconds, the world apparently still spinning for him. "Debbie? Izzat you?"

"If you call me that again, I will kill you until you die to death," D said.

A beat. Then, "It is you!"

D smirked, not quite ready for a full-fledged smile. "Yeah, it's me. Come on, I'll buy you a drink."

A short while later they were both seated at the bar. D was somewhat incapable of ordering drinks for anybody due to her basic inability to get the attention of the barkeep, but whiskey was procured eventually. "So. How ya been?" D said.

The redhead fidgeted. "Oh, well, you know…uneventful compared to before, really."

She looked at him, quirking an eyebrow. "Hundreds of years I haven't seen him, and he gives me _uneventful."_

"…well, I did get married."

D looked like somebody had slapped her with a wet fish. "Married?What kind of shrieking, whip-wielding, snake-haired harpy would marry _you?" _

"She's a florist," he said defensively, and leapt wildly for another subject. "How did you find me, anyway?"

"I had my people put an ad in the paper."

She earned a stare for that. He seemed to be weighing the likelihood of D making a joke against the likelihood of this being true.

"It was a very well-known paper."

Walter shook his head. "Your people, eh?"

"…alright," D admitted. "Midgets."

"Midgets."

D shrugged, wishing they were on the Hub so a halo would be so kind as to appear over her head. "Oh, you can get anything on eBay."

"One day, I'll learn not to ask," Walter sighed.

"No you won't."

"True. So how about you?" Walter said, gesturing for another round. "Picked up a new line of work, I see?" he gestured to the arguably human primate wandering toward the exit in a daze.

"Yes," she said. "I've taken Uncomfortable Truths as a collective. Been continuing the firm. Of course without you three there, I've had to do some part time, too. So it's the first four, and then whatever else the Cosmic Bureaucracy says falls under true and uncomfortable." Truth be told, being the anthropomorphic personification of Uncomfortable Truths was unrewarding drudgery most of the time. No one ever listened, it was terribly depressing until you got the hang of the constant, heavy cynicism, and forget having a love life—it was bad enough in her old job, and now she couldn't look at a man without immediately knowing every one of his little flaws and imperfections. Sure, you avoid the occasional serial killer, but it was still lonely. And the waves of suffocating despair you occasionally got when you accidentally started caring were a bit difficult to deal with, though coffee seemed to help with that.

And those jerks at the Cosmic Bureaucracy wouldn't let her switch, either.

But you didn't just _say _that.

"Sounds like something you'd enjoy," Walter said vaguely.

"It's alright," she said. "You don't really get appreciated much. And the clients are such boors."

"Hm." He was gazing at the flamethrower strapped to her back. "That weapon is familiar to me. Where have I see in it before?" he muttered.

"Oh, do you like it? It shoots fire. I keep it partially submerged in hammerspace, and that keeps it lightweight," D said proudly.

Walter shrugged and downed the last of whatever he was drinking. D stared into her glass and took a sip. She didn't drink much anymore. In the older days when she was first starting a solo career, when people seemed especially dull and petty and ignorant and the loneliness was constant and terrible, she'd tried drowning her problems in drink. It didn't work. For one thing, they kept learning to swim, and for another, drinking away the awful truth was hard when you _were _the awful truth.

"Listen," she began. She didn't know how to address the topic carefully, and never did. "Here's the deal. The Hub is in a reasonable amount of turmoil. There's been a rift—the factions are choosing sides, and the one of them is trying to bring down the Fourth Wall."

Oddly enough, for a world outside the Hub at any rate, the temperature dropped ten degrees. There was a long, pregnant silence. "So?" Walter said bluntly, taking a long draft.

"What d'you mean, so?" D said, her voice rising to an odd kind of whisper-yell.

"I mean, very simply, that I don't see how this applies to me," he said, looking away.

"You're _War,"_ she hissed. "How do you _think _it applies to you?"

"Wrong on two counts," he said stonily. "First off, I'm not War. I was never War. That's not how it worked. We were the Secondary Horsemen. Our power was subtler. I couldn't do anything to help you even if I wasn't retired, which I am. And if you didn't already know all this, Deb, I'm a codfish. Is someone _reading _us? Is that why I'm explaining to you these things you already know?"

"You can't retire from this job, Wally. You are what you are," she said evenly. "And we're Horse_persons_, you sexist pig," she added in a mutter, without much venom. This was not strictly true. The Secondary Horsepersons did not have to ride out at Armageddon, and thus did not have horses. They wouldn't have if given the choice. For one thing, the official Horsepersons of the Apocalypse were deemed elitist snobs, and for another, D had better things to do at the end of the world—such as preventing it—than trot about on some horse. They still called themselves Horsepersons because, well, brand association.

"Look at me," the Secondary Horseperson of War said miserably. "I'm losing _bar fights. _When you lose bar fights, that's a fair indicator that you're done with your job of being War."

D opened her mouth to protest, and then closed it. After a few moments, "No, you're right, that _is _pretty pathetic," she admitted.

"Thanks, Deb. Your words of encouragement have always kept me going in times of trouble."

"But that's not what I mean," she continued, unmindful. "You can't stop being an anthropomorphic personification. You just can't." There was no more explaining to be done. You couldn't change your basic makeup, even if you went and married a florist and started losing bar fights, and you couldn't change it if you started wearing trench coats and shooting fire at people for fun and spending your time criticizing amateur derivative fiction out of sheer boredom. "The Hub is our domain, and if the Fourth Wall goes down, we fade. I might stick around for a while," i.e., for a few hours, if hours were still around, until the lack of Fourth Wall threw the rest of creation into total chaos, since I've been doing my job and filling out all the paperwork, but you and the rest that have outlived your cosmic usefulness will dissipate within minutes—maybe more if you're on the Hub. We need an anchor, a crux, and so does everything else, seeing as what won't die immediately will when you start breathing colors and tasting emotions. That's what's at stake here. And you won't even _consider _it?"

"No," he said flatly. "If your army is so pathetic that one man will make a difference, you're hopeless." For a second, unexpected hope inflated in her chest at the sign of the Walter she knew when the firm was still together, but his next words, soft and wavering, killed it with haste. "I can't, alright?"

She was quiet for a long time. Then she punched him in the face, hard enough to bruise her knuckles. "That was for calling me Debbie," she said matter-of-factly, and stomped back to the exit.

"I'll see you around, won't I?" he called after her, rubbing his jaw.

She shrugged helplessly. "Uncomfortable Truths, remember?"

"Right," he said, suddenly becoming very interested in pattern of the floorboards.

She left. Outside, she sat down on the curb. She took off her hat and stared at the uneven cobblestones. Movie clichés were the only way she really knew how to express despondency. Walter had been her best bet. What were the chances of getting any of the others?

But D didn't do things halfway.

She glanced at the next address on the list. Oh, you had to be fucking _kidding _her…

0000

Sweet freedom! Ah, how wonderful it was!

Fluffy the mutant plot bunny scampered down the narrow space, moving as fast as his leaking grey matter would allow. He wasn't sure how he'd managed to get away, but he wasn't questioning his good luck. All he knew was that one moment he was in the clutches of the Dark One, and the next her attention was momentarily diverted. One strong kick was all it took to rip him from her vice-like grasp and launch him to freedom—and now he was running, his tiny rodent heart hammering.

She couldn't be far behind, no, certainly not. But she was a youngling (which of course did not lessen the fact that she was the devil incarnate, possibly even his mother-in-law), and her legs were short and untrained. He had a few minutes at the most. But a few minutes was all he would need.

There! The trunk! Oh thank the gods. It contained Writer's Blocks, he knew, instant death to creatures of imagination. His freedom would not last—how could it, when here was no true freedom in a multiverse that contained _her_? There was only one place where she couldn't follow him. He wouldn't get a chance like this again; he'd have to make this one count.

He bolted to it, bracing against it and trying to lift the lid.

Locked! No! Why oh why did it have to be locked?

He scrabbled at it, squeaking desperately. The trunk, in a way that should have been expected, did not respond. It seemed to be sulking.

He tried kicking it. He did not expect it to kick him back, with considerably more force and more legs. With a painful _whump, _he collided with the opposite wall.

"Flu-ffy!" a sing-song voice called.

Oh no. No!

"Flu-ffy, where _are _yoooou?"

Please no!

Fluffy scrambled up, ready to bolt further, but no, it was too late. She was bearing down on him now, a cute little smile that perfectly expressed her utter disdain for living things that spreading across her face.

"_There _you are! Mommy was worried sick." And just like that, she had him again. Hugging him. _Cuddling _him. Freedom had flown. Her vigilance would not wane again; his chance was gone.

Fluffy tried half-heartedly to bite her. It didn't work.

0000

"Go _away."_

"Baa-aa!"

"We love you!"

"Baa! Please update soon!"

"Shut up!"

"You're the best writer ever!"

"I said _shut up!"_

Aline, for reasons that she was not entirely willing to ponder, was being followed by a herd of sheep.

"You're so awesome! Baa!"

Making a grating noise of frustration, she yanked one of her shoes off and threw it at the nearest one. She missed. Far from being slighted, the herd gazed at her with star-struck admiration.

"You'll have a new chapter out soon, right?" one asked anxiously.

"I still have another shoe," she threatened lamely.

"Baa!"

She attempted reason. "Look," she said. "I haven't even written anything for months, and what I have was dreadful. Do you understand? There's just no possible way, so please leave me alone!"

The sheep stared at her in bewilderment. "Baa?"

"Does that mean the new chapter will be out soon?"

Stony faced, she ground out, "No."

They looked crestfallen for a moment, but soon went back to gushing praise at her. She tried throwing her other shoe. She missed again.

She sighed and collected her shoes, resigning herself for a long, annoying walk involving much tripping over her fans.

"Bloody sheep," she hissed about fifteen minutes later when attempts to make functioning earplugs failed. Then she stopped, something occurring to her. "How did a bunch of sheep find my writing?" Her brow furrowed. "And how can they talk?"

An unexpected answer came. "We weren't always sheep," said one, who Aline suddenly noticed had decidedly un-sheeplike eyes. "But we like it much better!"

Narration was suddenly reverberating in her skull. _The Hub…stretches you…_

She wondered where she'd heard that, and shuddered. "I need to get out of here," she muttered with new resolve. "Fast."

She picked up her pace, driven by an increasing sense of urgency. She managed to block out the crooning sheep—one of whom had started a round of Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall—for several minutes before she realized there were no sounds at all. Puzzled, she spun around to find the sheep perfectly silent, huddled together quite a way behind her.

"What's wrong with you?" she demanded of them. "There's still miles and miles of nothing for you to annoy me for."

"You're entering the land of the Burning Ones," one whispered, wide-eyed.

Aline blinked, imagining a tribe of people spending their lives as columns of flame. "Burning Ones?"

"Yes," another continued in a hushed voice, as if afraid that they would hear. "We do not venture there. No one should."

"They're terrible!" another moaned. "Oh, don't go! You'll be dead in minutes!"

"You're _sheep," _she pointed out flatly. "And anyway, whatever they are, I prefer them to listening to you, so good bye, have fun, screw you."

She ignored their continued urgings not to go, and soon they died away behind her. The silence crept back, and for the moment she welcomed it.

Pfft. Burning Ones. How bad could they be?


	12. A Disappointing Lack of Pyromania

0000

Chapter Eleven

0000

As it turned out, the Burning Ones didn't burn. They didn't even smolder.

Soon after getting away from the sheep, Aline found a couple dozen people sitting in a circle around a campfire, which was in fact the only burning thing in sight. She approached them warily. They didn't seem to have the loose, maniacal nature of the Hub's loudest residents, nor the creepy hive mind of its most unnatural. Perhaps they were just normal authors? A group of realistic fiction canons? Then why were the sheep so terrified of them?

But then again—_sheep. _

They seemed completely oblivious to her presence until she was within several yards of them, at which point a girl with curly red hair and a face that was mostly freckles turned around and waved to her. "Hey!" she called. "Come sit down!"

In a small flurry of movement, they made a space for her, and after a moment of hesitation, Aline joined them. "Are you the Burning Ones?" she ventured.

The curly-haired girl's smile didn't waver, though it seemed slightly faker than before. "We don't like calling ourselves that, but yeah."

"What's going on here?" Aline asked.

"Ooh, you haven't been to one before?" the girl said, giggling. "You'll find out. It's super-fun. I'm Rebecca."

Aline shrugged, deciding to go with it. Looking around, she found that this was probably the most normal group of people she'd encountered on this thrice-damned plane. They wore clothes that did not hurt your eyes. They sat normally. They didn't raise their voices or hit each other or anything. There were balding, bespectacled men and bubbly teenage girls alike. They were calmly talking to each other—most of them seemed well-spoken.

The only thing they seemed to have in common was a strange air of always being on the verge of an extremely long-suffering sigh and the rueful admittance of the fact that the whole world did, in fact, rest on their shoulders, and that they would endure for the sake of the greater good.

She wasn't quite sure how you could have an air that communicated all that, but somehow, they did.

She stuck out her hands to warm them by the fire only to find that the fire had no heat. It flickered cheerfully, but felt as empty as a hologram. She supposed this was normal.

Suddenly, the group hushed, conversations trickling to an end. "It's starting!" Rebecca hissed excitedly.

"What's _it?_" Aline asked irritably, but was shushed in short order.

An austere older girl with her black hair in twin braids stood up, clearing her throat. "Welcome, fellow critics and flamers alike, to the daily Burning!" A cheer went up, along with some applause.

_Oh, _thought Aline. _Them._

"Today," the girl continued. "The horrible monstrosities on the face of literature that _must _be eliminated immediately," she paused for dramatic effect, displaying a sheaf of papers, "is a triple-play. We start today with a little fanfiction called 'Bleeding Love' and egad is it awful." A chorus of agreement, a few boos directed at the work, a man throwing himself in the middle of the circle and babbling incoherently for a few seconds—the very same man who had seconds earlier been quietly discussing the finer points of literary criticism with a pair of college students. Aline leaned back, blinking in alarm.

"This fanfiction," the girl with the braids continued angrily, "has committed many an unforgivable atrocity for which there is no redemption. It uses the word orbs to describe eyes. Cerulean replaces blue—twice! I counted no less than _five _misplaced commas. A character who normally doesn't use contractions uses them three times in this! Quote grammar is misused _every single time._" A gasp went up at this. "Yes! Capital letter and a period instead of lowercase letter and a comma! But that's not the worst of it!"

"There's _worse?" _a teenage boy asked, horrified.

The girl nodded solemnly. "Yes," she confirmed. "In addition to all of the above…it's a _songfic."_

Many of the teenagers looked quite green. Quite a few of the older critics snorted softly.

"I vote we burn this abomination to cinders, find this miserable excuse of an author and write her a strongly-worded letter!" one yelled.

"Burn the witch!" another agreed.

"All in good time," the girl assured. "This next one is a book, which rids it of its pathetic excuses!" she shouted, holding up a paperback volume so quickly Aline didn't get a look at the cover. "It's got vampires in it! And romance! And it came out after 2005!"

"No!"

"Unforgivable," a college-age young woman gasped.

"Vampires are stupid and overused, and romance is icky. All in favor?"

"Aye!" was the rousing chorus.

"All opposed?"

Silence.

"I thought so. And finally, we have this sixth grader's poem for a school assignment. The rhythm is off, she rhymed 'love' with 'dove' and then 'love' again, and the use of figurative language is extremely clunky at the very best! I mean, tch, look at this drivel, my kid sister could do better."

"But I thought—" Aline began, and was shushed immediately.

"This is terrible and the author must be informed! I don't think we need to vote on that!"

The group agreed that they did not.

The papers and book were burned in short order, after which marshmallows were distributed.

"So what'd you think?" Rebecca asked. "Cool, huh?"

"I guess," Aline said blandly, snatching a few marshmallows from the bag as it was passed around.

"I'm not really a flamer, though," Rebecca assured. "I only stay with these guys because they're the only _reasonable _people around."

"Really now." Aline found to her annoyance that attempting to toast marshmallows on a fire that didn't exude heat was something approaching impossible. And marshmallows were terrible untoasted.

"Yeah," Rebecca said nonchalantly, "I'm just an honest reviewer, really. I'm not like all those sheeple who just sugar coat everything—I give my honest, straightforward opinion, with all the insults directed at the author's mother and sexuality included, and you know what? They're _thankful _for it, because they finally get some honesty in a review!"

"Really?" Aline enquired, her mouth full of untoasted marshmallow. Even wonderful, gooey marshmallow heaven was deprived of her, she though gloomily. Her misery just never ended.

"Of course! So many have come crawling back, begging for my help. We help so many lost, untalented souls that way. Really, we're the only hope literature has. Without us keeping things in check, it'd be much worse."

"Huh."

"But like I said, I'm not really a flamer. Just an honest person who refuses to be put down."

Quite unexpectedly, a coconut flew past on white angel wings. Aline shot up, craning her neck around to stare at it.

"Was that a coconut?" she asked.

"Oh yes," Rebecca said, nodding. "I expect it's flying south for the winter."

(The Handbook of Legitimate Humor Writing states in chapter five, page seventy-two, clause four, line five that '_all humor stories not written by professionals must contain no less than three tasteless references to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Three shall be the number of the references, no more, no less. Four shall not be the number of the references, nor two, unless you proceed immediately to three. Five is right out. Er, sorry. Ahem.' _The Cliché Compendium notes that this is a regulation rarely followed, as numbers of tasteless references to Monty Python in a given comedic work usually far exceed three.)

"You have winter here?" Aline asked.

"Well no, not as such," Rebecca admitted. "But it's flying south, so it must be winter."

Aline's interest was sparked. "Which way is south?"

Rebecca's brow furrowed. After a moment, she replied, "The direction the coconut is flying, of course."

"Ah," Aline said. "In that case, I better follow it. Nice meeting you, goodbye." The Burning Ones did not seem particularly troubled to see her go.

The coconut was clipping along quickly, and was already almost out of sight. Aline was supremely unathletic and had a muscle consistency similar to pudding, but long spindly legs helped immensely as she ran after it. Maddeningly, it always remained slightly out of her reach as she snatched at it. She was breathing heavily and cursing before long. In a last-ditch burst of energy, she leapt, and miraculously caught it, trapping it against the ground.

"Hah! Gotcha!" she panted as its wings beat fruitlessly. It was only then that the absurdity of the situation hit her. It wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't also hit her that she wasn't finding it nearly as absurd as she should have been.

"So," she said to the coconut, whose escape attempts were waning in ferocity. "What am I going to do with you?"

"Why are you talking to that coconut?" Aline stared at the coconut. Another anomaly of the Hub was that it was often difficult to tell from which direction sound was coming from.

"Over here," the voice said. It was a light, dreamy sort of voice that you would imagine a cloud would have. Aline let the coconut fly free in her distraction. It gave a squeal of joy and flew off into the abyss.

A vaguely smiling girl was waving slightly. Her hair was light blond and braided, a lime green beret resting askew on it. At her feet lurked a stout green creature that came up to her waist. It was covered in warts, its face was mostly nose, with uneven yellow teeth and piggy black eyes, and it wore a filthy loincloth around its waist.

"Hello," Aline said. "I was chasing this coconut, see, because they fly south in the winter and I was trying to get my bearings.

"That's nice," the girl said sincerely, nodding. "I see that you're insane, but that's okay. I'm Elisa. This is Jeremy."

The short green thing darted out from behind Elisa's legs and sniffed at her. Then it darted back. "Tits or GTFO," it warbled.

"Don't mind him," Elisa said. "He's only a troll. Completely harmless, really."

"Everything you like sucks," said Jeremy.

"I'm Aline, and I am not insane," she said. "Honest."

"I believe you," Elisa said, smiling broadly. "Are you lost?"

"A little, yeah."

"It's hard to get lost out here. Nothing to get lost from, huh?"

"Actually," Aline tapped her pointer fingers together, "I'm looking for a trench. I had to leave for…a good, totally legitimate reason and I can't get back."

"Only I am right!" Jeremy shouted, frothing.

Elisa's visage darkened, and her smile faded. "Oh. You're one of _them."_

It dawned on her. "So that means you're one of _them!"_

"I am not," Elisa said indignantly, placing her knuckles on her hips.

"Well, neither am I," Aline scoffed. "They dragged me along against my will."

"I only just escaped. Were you escaping, too?"

Aline dug a toe unsuccessfully into the featureless 'ground'. "Well, yeah. I just don't have anywhere else to go."

"So we can be friends!" Elisa brightened up immediately.

"I guess so, yeah."

"Cool."

"Your opinions are all invalid!" Jeremy shrieked, collapsing on the 'ground' and spinning wildly on his head. "All of them!"

Elisa had a few sandwiches. They had an interesting quality of either being delicious or indigestible, depending. Elisa thought this odd, because they'd all been tuna when she packed them, and they'd metamorphosed into either turkey-and-cheese or egg salad.

"You haven't spent much time on the Hub, have you," Aline stated, eying the egg salad suspiciously.

Elisa hadn't. They swapped stories. Elisa's was much the same as hers. Wrote something. Ended up here. Ran away from the faction she'd ended up with. They chatted, the stream of time as pointless as waterproof towels.

"Thanks for the sandwich," Aline said eventually, standing up. "But I should probably go. Maybe someone will open a plot hole for me." She sighed. It didn't seem likely even to her.

"Okay," Elisa said. "Buh-bye now."

"Lurkmoar," Jeremy wailed, waving his pudgy fists in the air.

"Cool story, bro," Aline said, patting him on his lumpy, horned head.

"Oh, and by the way," Elisa said. "Watch out for Them. They were breeding last I was there."

Aline knew better than to ask. The pair went on, and were soon lost in the ocean of featureless white. Aline was left alone. After some time, she picked a random direction and followed it.

0000

An indefinite period of time spent walking—everything was indefinite here, especially time—Aline came to the edge of a sheer cliff.

She looked right. She looked left. It extended in either direction, uneven and rocky, for as far as she could see. It occurred to her that if she came back to this exact same spot later, very probably the cliffs wouldn't be there. Unearthly winds howled about them. She dropped to her hands and knees for fear of being blown over and crawled. Inching forward, she slowly extended her neck over the edge, clinging with numb fingers to the edge.

People were hanging there by little more than their fingertips. Hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe more. They moaned and wailed, calling out mournfully. It was hard to hear over the winds, but soon Aline started making things out.

"But how does it end!"

"Do they make it out?"

"But does this mean she really does love him?"

"That explosion must have been a hoax…right?"

"Tell me! Please!"

"I have to know!'"

She sat back, a little disturbed. The fierce winds whipped at her hair, making it stand up in a dishwater blonde cloud around her head.

Was this the end of the world? she wondered. Out beyond the sheer cliff face there was nothing…but a different sort of nothing. It was vaguely blue.

A bony hand shot up from beyond the drop, long, unkempt fingernails clawing into the unground. Aline gasped slightly as a woman's head appeared after it, pallid skin stretched taut over a face made mostly of angles.

"Please…" she whispered. "Tell me…what happens in the last episode? I had to leave…before I found out."

Her heart twinged slightly. "Sorry, what are we talking about?"

"Does he live?" she gasped. "Does he? I must know!"

"Er…" Aline said. "Yes. Yes, he does."

The woman's eyes glazed over peacefully. "What…a…copout…," she breathed, and let herself go falling backwards into the different-sort-of-nothing with an expression of utter tranquility.

Aline scrambled back from the edge far enough to not hear the winds anymore. She wasn't answering any more questions.

She sat and stared at the different-sort-of-nothing for a while.

How very blue it was.


	13. The Continuing Perils of Tuesday

**A/N: I apologize for the long-unattended misprint in the previous chapter. It has now been fixed.**

0000

Chapter Twelve

0000

D could practically feel the bags forming under her eyes already. She looked between the address, between the scrap of paper, between the restaurant. She did this several times.

But…how?

She was in America this time, somewhere in a state that probably began with an 'I'. The land was dusty and full of long empty roads, weeds, truckers, and the restaurant she was staring aghast at now.

…how?!

She stood there for a while longer, a dark shape in the noonday sun. A truck went by, leaving a boiling cloud of dust in its wake. Then another, and another.

_Suck it up, you goddamn pansy,_ she told herself eventually, and went inside.

The tiles were a particularly horrid shade of orange. Everything smiled at her with a dimpled yellow half-circle—the seats, the tables, the trashbins, the cashier's hat, the cups. The effect would have been better if the eyes accompanying the smile were not quite so malevolent. She saw promises of her eternal torment in all of them.

Little plastic toys stared maliciously at her from behind a plastic display case. A ceiling fan turned sluggishly in the heat. A few Americans, most of whom were of the unusually sized variety, sat at the booths, consuming what she could only assume was food.

A girl stood behind the cash registers, filing her nails and chewing gum. 'Skinny' did not even begin to cover it. She was a skeleton with skin stretched clumsily over it. Her garish red-and-yellow clothes hung on her toothpick frame like laundry on a line. She was effectively the most realistic stick figure ever drawn.

She was thin enough, in fact, to be considered a great beauty, only her lank hair was thinly clinging to her scalp, and the skin around her sunken eyes was veering on deep purple.

As D walked up to the counter, she flashed a smile that was even less realistic than the décor. "Welcome to McDonalds, how may I serve you?"

"For starters, by telling me what the hell happened to you, you fuckin' crazy bitch," D said in a low monotone.

The plastic smile did not waver. The eyes remained as dead as they ever were. "Welcome to McDonalds, how may I serve you?"

"Fran. Come on. You're freaking me out."

Was that a twitch? D hoped so. "Welcome to McDonalds, how may I—?"

"Shut up! Just…shut up!" D shouted. None of the patrons noticed. Fran shut up, continuing to smile.

"Now stop shutting up and start telling me just what in the name of the nine hells you are doing here."

Fran was, to D's great relief, no longer smiling. "I am serving customers."

"No, you're making a goddamn mess of yourself, that's what, and I as your best friend demand to know why."

At that, she cracked. The corner of her mouth twitched bitterly and she gripped the counter. Her usual glare returned. D never thought she'd be so happy to have someone glare at her so malevolently. "Oh, that's rich," Fran bit out. "Best friend indeed. I think I might laugh. Hah. Hahaha. Hah! Hear how hard I'm laughing? That's because you're so funny, Deb. So. Goddamn. Funny."

"Now that's better," D said with more than a little relief.

"I was serious. I'm pretty pissed at you, actually."

"Huh." D thought about this. "So, it's been the same old, same old with you, huh?"

"Ayup." Fran smacked loudly on her gum and blew a bubble. "You want a Happy Meal or what, bub?"

"Thanks, but I prefer living, and to requisition a new body at this point would be very uncomfortable indeed. I expect the universe to be ending in the near future."

Fran snorted. "Aw, c'mon, this stupid story has taken enough undeserved potshots at fast food already. It ain't that bad."

"At _this _particular eatery? Food prepared by _you? _Yeah, right. I still want my original request filled. What the hell happened to you?"

"What do you mean? I've always looked like this. Minus the uniform." She picked at a loose thread on her shoulder. "Though they're really not that bad, once you get past the silly hats. I don't mind the silly hats so much anymore."

"Not that, bimbo, I know what you're damn well supposed to look like. The uniform. The silly hat. The surroundings. The company of what appears to be The Blob That Ate Everything. This is my problem with the situation."

"Hah to the fucking hah, sister. I just happen to appreciate a good bit of humor, yaknow. Irony. Most goddamn sophisticated form of humor there is."

"Yeah, yeah, I know all about your shitty sense of humor," D rolled her eyes, "but spending god-knows-how-long in this place for the sake of a terrible joke is a pretty fucking awful way to live, if you ask me."

The Secondary Horseperson of Famine gave a small shrug. "Yeah, well, what are _you _doing with your life? Reviewing bad fanfiction or something like that?"

"Yeah, hyuk, hyuk," D said. "Like that would ever happen. Least I'm not working in McDonalds. Or married to a goddamn florist."

"Oh, is that what Wally's been up to? Good for him, the goddamn cheating tool."

"Don't even pretend to be angry. That was over before it even started."

"It was your fault and you know it."

"Was not."

"Was too."

"Was not."

"Slut."

"Bitch."

"Whore."

"Jerk."

There was a long pause filled only with glaring and the noisy sound of the last of a supersized milkshake being sucked away.

Fran opened her arms. "Come here, you complete and utter fuckwit." They embraced. Hugging a stick figure was a near impossibility, but D was used to it.

"So I'm guessing you didn't come here just to enjoy the atmosphere and be insulted," Fran deduced.

D sighed. "I was going to ask you to join the battle for the fate of reality, but after talking to Walter, I don't think my heart is in it anymore."

"So he already said no, huh? Tough break. But I guess you're used to him saying no to you, eh? Zing!" Fran cackled.

D covered her face with her palms in shame. "Author above_, _your sense of humor is so unbelievably shitty. I feel embarrassed just listening to you."

"Cheer up. You haven't even asked me yet."

"Okay." D leaned forward with her elbows on the counter. "Would you like to join the battle for the fate of reality? Knowing that if my side—the best side, obviously—loses, we'll cease to exist? And, quite aside from that, the entirety of the multiverse will go completely bananas for the rest of forever?"

"Not a chance in hell."

"Yeah, alright," D sighed. "I forgot what an unbelievable asswipe you are."

"What a terrible thing to forget. I feel rather offended." D didn't bother hurling another barb her way. After a few moments Fran's huge-eyed stare dropped downward. "Come on. I'm Famine. A cut-down, bargain-priced Famine who works in a fucking McDonalds. What could I do?"

"Shit, I don't even know." D stared upwards. "Had to ask."

"I don't think I even have my powers anymore."

"Bullshit. Can't lose our powers. It's hardcoded in. We can be lazy and not use them, but that's not the same."

"Yeah?" Fran snorted. "Prove it, O mighty mistress of Death."

Without missing a beat, as if automatically, "The pudgy gentlemen in booth #8 will have an un-fucking-believable mother of a heart attack in four minutes and thirteen seconds. You may want to call an ambulance in advance."

A long pause. "…shit. You do this all the time?"

"Can't turn it off, actually. It's pretty annoying. "

They stood in silence for a minute longer.

"Yeah," D said awkwardly, scrunching together and tilting her hat forward. "I'm gonna find Paul now. Any idea where he is? My sources are pinning him all over the place."

"Might want to check the North Pacific Gyre or somewhere equally disgusting. He's been sort of aimless lately."

"Yeah, alright. Later, you utter tool. Perhaps if reality doesn't disintegrate I'll look you up."

"Later, whore. Have fun with that war thing."

D left. Shortly afterwards, Fran dialed an ambulance and the man in booth #8 had a heart attack.

0000

"Hello, child," a voice said suddenly. It was a kind, all-knowing voice, the sort of voice your favorite teacher would have.

Aline started. She had been staring into the vast blueness beyond the cliffs and had lost track of—well, everything, despite the fact that there was nothing much to lose track of.

"Over here," the voice said again, with slightly more irritation.

Aline craned her neck around and was almost surprised. A woman robed in purest white stood there. A soft halo of gold surrounded her entire body, and her face was beautiful without having any specific feature that made it so. Inasmuch as there was reality on the Hub, she did not seem to be entirely part of it.

Aline was immediately suspicious. "Who're you?" she said bluntly.

The woman smiled beautifically. "I am your guardian angel, child, and I have—"

"Uh huh," Aline said flatly. "And why've I got one of those?"

The glowing woman blinked. "What? What do you mean, why?"

Aline shrugged and folded her arms. "Seems odd, is all."

"Because everyone does," the woman said, nonplussed.

"I bet you're lying."

The alleged angel shook her head without seeming to deny anything. "Never you mind. I have come—"

"Wait, so if you're my guardian angel, why didn't you show up to guard me earlier?" Aline demanded. "Why didn't you appear all glowy and whatnot when I was being dragged here against my will? Was _Lost _on or something and you really didn't want to have to resort to recaps?"

"Look, it's your destiny," the woman said irritably, tapping her foot. "There are rules, you know."

"Destiny? What?"

"Yes," the angel said immediately, in far more majestic tones. "It is your destiny, child, to—"

Aline was rubbing her chin quizzically. "Now why've I got a destiny?"

"I'm sorry? What kind of question is that?"

"Why's it my destiny to get pushed around and mistreated all the time? Why don't you tell me that, huh? That's a terrible destiny. I demand a new destiny! Can I pull one out of a hat or something? This one sucks. Like, a lot."

"You can't have a new destiny," the angel said flatly. "Would you just listen for five seconds?"

"Is this because of that underdog business again?" Aline groaned. "Not that again."

"No, you twit, there's a prophecy!" That shut Aline up for a few seconds, in which period her eyebrows knit together and she blinked.

"So, uh…prophecy. That's not cliché at all, by the way. What does it say?"

"I cannot tell you," the angel said in sage tones, half-closing her eyes and bowing her head mystically. "Know only that—"

"Whaaaat?" Aline whined. "Why not?"

The angel opened her mouth to answer, lifting an authoritative finger, but lowered it again slowly. There was a short silence. "Actually, that's a good question," she said, brow furrowing. She waved a dismissive hand. "But never mind, that's not what's important right now!"

"Yeah, I know what's important," Aline said, plopping down on the ground with her legs crossed. "Getting me an explanation for this nonsense for starters. Oh, hey, speaking of which, I've been meaning to talk to your boss about it. The big guy upstairs, he's in charge of angels, right? I want to ask about a few things, like suffering and death and Disney Channel original movies, and why there has to be a world specifically for fictional things. It seems a bit silly. And why on earth the platypus exists, that too. Do you think you could get me a meeting with him?"

"No," the angel ground out. "You can't. Look, shut up for a second. The prophecy is vital to the continued survival of the universe. Not just this universe, but all universes! You are destined to save us all!"

"Am I?" Aline said skeptically. "Does this prophecy of yours even rhyme?"

"Yes!" the angel cried. "Yes, it does! What do you say to that?"

Aline thought about it. "I think you're waffling," she said. "Who wrote this prophecy anyway? Under what conditions? Why are you so sure it refers to me? I'm going to need these questions and an additional twenty-item survey answered before I do any prophecy-fulfilling. Look here, glowy-lady, I read a lot, I know the disastrous consequences of wanton prophecy-fulfilling and make no mistake.

"I'm trying to help you!" the angel cried, despairing.

"Really?" Hope touched Aline's eyes, the slightly-sardonic, tentatively-genuine kind of hope that doesn't honestly expect to stick around long. "Can you get me home? I don't care what color shoes I have to go find and click together. I'll click any sort of footwear you want. But let me go home."

"No."

"Some guardian angel you are," Aline muttered, exhaling angrily and flicking a stray lock of hair away from her face. "You know, I bet you're not even a real angel at all. I bet—" She shut up suddenly; something had occurred to her. She looked up and gave an uncharacteristic sly smile. "Oooh, I think I know what you are.

"What?" The woman might have paled. "No, shut up."

"Nuh uh. I know exactly what you are."

"Shut up! Shut up, no you don't!"

Aline grinned rather maniacally. "You're a—"

"That's it!" the woman squealed. "That's it! I was going to help you, I was going to solve all your problems if you'd just listened, but no! Well, you know what? You can just—" Aline never found out what she could just, as at that moment the woman burst into a golden shower of glitter. The shimmering particles floated down to the unground, where they faded to nothing. All that was left of her was a small black box with a bright red button, labeled in large, friendly letters: Deus Ex Machina.

Eventually, Aline said to the silence, "Told you I knew what you were."

0000

"Where the hell are my fucking people!?" Nikki shouted, storming down the length of the mysteriously area-changing trench. She was not pleased—even less pleased than usual.

"As opposed to your regular ones?" a talking skeleton said as she passed it.

"Shut up," she told it absent-mindedly, and continued storming. Nikki was a very fine stormer indeed. A few gray clouds had started gathering around her head and flashing with lightning occasionally.

"Give me that," she snarled at the witch and plucked the mirror from her startled grasp. The mask in the mirror regarded her warily.

"May I help you?"

"Yeah, show me where my main characters are. Can't start a proper final showdown without them, can I now?" This was not strictly true. In actuality, the final showdown couldn't physically start unless all the main characters were present, unless the plot's whims lead them to arrive at the last minute to save the day or some such complication. But Nikki was not a woman known for her patience.

"Please deposit $1.67," the mirror droned.

Nikki muttered darkly under her breath and rummaged through her pockets, inserting two bills into the slot.

"In exact change, if you please." She could have sworn the damn thing was smirking at her.

"How about this," she said reasonably. "You show me what I need to see, and I won't be forced to cause myself seven years of substandard luck."

The mirror sighed. "There's an awful lot of plot matter in the way," it said. "Even a little could block the vision. I'm not sure if I can—"

"Do it anyway!"

The face in the mirror blurred away, leaving a swirling gray fog. Several times she thought it might be resolving into a recognizable picture, but always it faded before she could get a good look.

Eventually a little blue triangle swam into clarity. The words on it read, "Ask again later." She shook it. The gray fog returned, and another set of words on a little blue triangle appeared.

"Reply hazy, try again."

She threw it against the wall. It shattered. Fragments of curses upon her bloodline could just be heard from the shards.

Shoddy goddamn Microsoft products, Nikki thought.

She paced. So many things were going on she almost didn't remember when she'd last seen her fellow main characters. Between the arrangements and brooding and commanding and all…let's see. D had left on some mysterious family business. She hadn't mentioned if she would be back.

Aline was last seen wandering away to mope. The luggage had strutted after her, carrying the Blocks. And Jenna…she'd put Jenna in charge of making sure Aline didn't do anything stupid.

Nikki was suddenly drenched in cold sweat. If she ever got complete control over space and time, as she fully intended to, she mused, the first thing she would do is go back in time and punch herself in the face.

And quite a few other people, too, come to think of it. If Nikki had the time, she'd spend an awful lot of it punching people in the face.

There was no time, she thought. She had to organize the bishies, bribe the reluctant ones into doing the optimal fangirl-distracting acts while maintaining the T rating, make sure stun weapons were properly distributed, do her fair share of red-faced yelling at people. The thought of delegating responsibility never even occurred to her. Had it been suggested to her, she would have enquired confusedly as to how that worked at all, and would have left to do something in the middle of the explanation.

She walked briskly for a few seconds, got tired of it and stole a hovercar. The big-headed kid could complain all he wanted, it was hers now. She listened to the satisfying whir of its engines as it rose. Given an aerial view of the endless winding fissure in the ground, fictional physics could be best appreciated. The trench would bulge in places where people congregated; it would miraculously teleport people walking along its length to near their destination; it would be as spacious or narrow as the story demanded at the moment. Magnificent.

She peered down at where her forces were gathering. She'd assigned a few command posts to those she'd particularly trusted. After all, she'd practically been raised by the fictional. Back when Marie was on full-time duty and Nikki was too young to be brought along, having achieved master rank in only a few forms of combat, she'd been left in the Canon Retreat Chamber. Her hair was usually pink then, she remembered. She was technically human, but as a caretaker, the canons minded her not at all. Nikki didn't think she was ever really innocent—she and Jenna had the same mother, for one thing—but those were…good times, you could even say.

The canons were her real family. The talking dinosaurs went to her ballet recitals. The skeletal wizards cheered her on when she was flooring full-grown men at her karate tournaments. The rock monsters told her bedtime stories, usually ones straight from their histories. Family.

And if there was anything she'd learned consistently and constantly throughout her childhood, it was that nothing, nothing in any known or unknown universe, not even the sort of thing you literally were unable to imagine, was impossible.

Which was why every passing hour convinced her more and more that Marie really did know how to bring down the Fourth Wall.

…but _how?_

She flew along for a few minutes, thinking, before giving up. This was not due to a lack of bloody-minded obstinacy on Nikki's part, but merely her knowledge of how her world worked. She was the hero—or, well, if she was going to get really technical, Aline was the hero, and she was a Wise Old Mentor variant—and her mother was the villain, and, as such, the villain's plan would only be thwarted at the last moment. Contemplating its true form before the climax was well underway—and Nikki was certain that it wasn't upon them yet, it was narratively premature—was thoroughly pointless. She would just have to trust.

Unless, she thought, that Marie was the hero, and her army of disenfranchised, oppressed peoples were really the heroic army, and Nikki had been the villain all along, with Aline as her bumbling innocent sidekick bound to betray her at the last moment to assure the hero's victory…

Nikki quickly put such dreadful thoughts away.

0000

Aline spent a long time sitting there and dumbly staring at the little black box. The red button with its friendly letters was so inviting. _Press me! _it called in a high-pitched voice, _Press me and all your troubles will be gone!_

And no doubt they would be. Last time she'd pressed a Deus ex Machina, she'd found herself miraculously back at her desk, face-down in a puddle of drool, the evidence of all she'd done nothing but uncomfortable memories. Even now her hand tentatively began to reach out to it, only to be snatched back with a new wave of doubt.

Cosmic duty warred with cautionary concerns, which struggled with the promise of interesting things, which argued with the fact that Deus ex Machinas were not your most predictable objects, which had a nasty spat with danger of being killed or worse, which was trumped by the boredom that awaited at home, and was shouted down by long-suffering haggard voice of Common Sense.

Aline did the sensible thing and put it in her pocket. It proceeded to shrink down into near-nothing and escape anybody's notice until the time it was needed most.

She was still not far from the Hanging Cliffs. She could still hear the wind and wails that came from beyond them, but it was faint, and they were, after all, a reference point. The choice was right or left.

Right was a short walk back to the base.

Left was likely death.

Aline didn't know which was which, and so, guessed.

Technically, it was still Tuesday. Naturally, she went left.


	14. A Pitched Sea Battle Occurs

**AN: You know, I'd entirely forgotten how fun and easy this story is to write compared to **_**some **_**projects I could mention. Please enjoy this chapter about pirates.**

000000

Chapter 13

000000

The tribe had her surrounded practically the very moment she managed to perceive them.

One moment she was walking along a vast, empty expanse of absolute nothingness—then a blurry spot on the unhorizon appeared, and by the time she'd taken another step, she'd entered their territory. They swarmed.

Aline carefully moved one of the spearheads away from her face, only to find herself faced with another one. "Uhmmmmm," she enunciated.

"You're our enemy, ain't you?" one of the tribeswomen said. She, like the others, was draped in ragged garments of pages, all of them full of drawings of two people…engaged with one another.

"Looks like," said another.

"I hear they have an underdog now."

"You think this is her?" another said, scrunching her eyes. "But, first mate, I somehow thought underdogs were all boys…"

"Oh, that is so sexist," a fifth said. "And maybe she _is _a boy. Have you asked her gender identity? Have you? Huh?"

"I am seriously starting to regret we let you into this thing!" the fourth snapped. "When you said you were in our ship I didn't expect all this…_social justice_ to come with it. What kind of crazy universe are you from?"

The fifth started to reply, fiddling with her glasses, when the unquestioned leader said, "Friends. Eyes on the prize."

All attention immediately returned to Aline. "Yes, Captain," several said in unison.

"So can we take her back to camp and boil her alive and eat her?" a new one said eagerly.

"No, bosun, that won't be necessary. I think we can just kill her."

"Wait!" Aline shrieked. "Why would I walk right into you if I thought you'd kill me?"

"Maybe you're stupid," said the cannibalistic one, helpfully.

"Or a spy," the first mate suggested.

"No! I legitimately ship…" Aline cast her eyes desperately around the shipper's clothing, and guessed. "Zutara. Yes. In fact, I _met _Zutara. That's right. What do you say to that?"

The shippers' eyes narrowed as one.

"_We _like Kataang," the captain hissed, her voice strangled with hatred. "Oh, you are walking the plank _so hard."_

"Wait," said the shipper who had spoken fifth. "Hold on. I thought we were a racist 'tribe' stereotype. What's all this about captains and bosuns and plank walking?"

"What does it matter!" the captain snapped.

"Well, we can't very well make her walk the plank if there _is _no plank. I mean, that's just silly. Why _don't _we have a plank, anyway?"

"I…" The captain slowly raised a pontificating finger and then lowered it, even slower.

"Probably _someone _wasn't creative enough to think of the whole 'shipping' metaphor in advance," snorted the fifth shipper.

"Or it was recognized well in advance that it was a tired, stupid metaphor that doesn't bear repeating, _cabin girl,_" sniffed the first mate.

"I can't very well _be _a cabin girl if we don't have an actual cabin on a boat,can I?" the cabin girl said testily, banging her spear on the unground. "Nor can we make the prisoner walk the plank!"

"Fine, then!" the captain snarled. "We're pirates now! There!"

And then they were pirates.

The ground beneath Aline's feat pitched and swayed. She stood on her tiptoes and saw over the heads of her captors that the vast flat nothing had turned to a vast, wavy nothing. She was now, quite literally, on a ship.

The shippers around her were still dressed in ragged scraps of fanart, but cut more…piratey. A few had obtained hooks and eye patches. The eye patches looked particularly silly on the girls who wore glasses.

"Actually," the cabin girl said, furrowing her brow, "we don't really need to be _pirates_. We can just be any people with a boat. Like fishermen, or merchants, or naval officers, or—"

The captain smacked her across the face. "We're pirates," she said flatly, adjusting her overlarge pirate hat.

"Aye-aye, cap'n," the cabin girl muttered acidly.

"Right then," the captain said crisply, turning back to Aline. "Now, little spy, you will walk off the plank, and to assist you, we will wave our weapons at you, which, you may see, are conveniently no longer spears, but good, notched cutlasses. That'll learn you for shipping the wrong thing."

"And what happens to me if I go off the plank?" Aline said, eying the churning sea of nothing.

"Not sure, actually," the captain replied. "There's lots of theories. It'll be absolutely _fascinating _to find out."

As was proper, the shippers began waving their cutlasses at Aline, who stumbled towards the plank.

"Wait!" she shouted, barely a foot from the edge.

"What _now?" _the captain growled.

"What if…what if I told you a story?" Aline said wildly. "A really, really good Kataang story. With…kissing in it."

"Don't listen to her, captain," the cabin girl urged. "The Scheherazade Gambit is such a shitty, boring gambit, and it almost always works in one way or another."

The rest of the shippers shushed her. There was silence but for the howling winds of the sea, which had absolutely not been present before the captain decided that her ship was pirates. Almost the entire ship was sorely tempted.

"How many chapters?" the captain said suspiciously.

"As many as you like!" Aline squeaked.

"And it better be _really _well written," the first mate threatened.

"Absolutely!"

"Alright, then," the captain said, after a short commiseration with the rest of her ship. The shippers all settled down in a circle around the plank, cross-legged and intent. "You may begin."

Aline didn't hesitate. She reached deep into her hoodie pocket until her fingers brushed one of the Writer's Blocks she'd stolen, and instantly, a floodgate in her mind opened wider.

Aline began to speak…

000000

The next address wasn't even a fucking address. It was just 'North Pacific Gyre, Pacific Ocean, Earth," next to longitude and latitude. How was D supposed to read longitude and latitude? She might be a spirit of imagination as old as humanity itself, but that didn't mean she knew everything. Before the falling-out, she'd been busy, and after that, it had only been a few centuries until computers had been invented and saved her from the necessity of ever having to figure it out exactly.

And D wasn't entirely sure what a gyre was, but she _did _have an inkling that on most Earths, it covered half the entire Pacific Ocean.

Oh, well. She opened the plot hole and guessed.

She landed ass-first on garbage, and not water, as could have been reasonably expected.

She stood up, her boots crunching the debris. She looked around, hands on her hips.

As far as the eye could see, garbage.

No sign of Paul.

D stuck her hands in her pockets and began to walk.

The sun beat down. It was weird how she could actually feel it, in the realer words. D shrugged her coat off. She hadn't done that in a few decades. The feel of the sun on her skin was…weird. She didn't think she liked it.

It didn't occur to her once that she shouldn't be able to stand on an island of floating garbage.

As per the Coyote Principle, that was for the best.

A few hours later, she found him, perched on a small mountain of plastic bottles.

She climbed to the top and sat down next to him.

Atop the pile of human refuse, they watched the sunset.

He was smiling placidly, apparently oblivious to D's presence.

He had once been disgusting, covered in boils and pustules, riddled with gangrene and decay, hair falling out in clumps, a mouth half-full of black, rotten teeth. Not only did grass wither and die when he passed by, whole trees shuddered and shed their leaves en masse before bursting into flame. He'd carried every known disease, and again as many unknown diseases, on his person at all times. Sometimes in little bottles. Usually on his direct person.

Now he looked like an ordinary blondish young man in jeans and a white t-shirt.

D suppressed a sob. "My god, but what's happened to us?"

Paul reached up and patted her on the shoulder. His touch didn't make her shudder in disgust, not even a little bit. And that was _wrong._

"You know, the universe is ending," she told him unhappily.

Paul looked faintly concerned.

"I was going to suggest you join the strike team to stop it," she sighed. "Stupid of me."

Paul gave a vague smile.

D pulled her legs up and folded her arms on her knees. "But I guess I'm glad I got to see you, a last time. Even if we are just…shells, now."

Paul nodded slightly.

Suddenly she couldn't stand it anymore. It had been entirely too much sadness for one day. She stood and opened a sickly yellow plot hole. Paul regarded it with mild curiosity.

She put a hand on his shoulder, briefly, and jumped in.

She reappeared on a park bench.

She sat there for what felt like a long time, lost in millennia of worthless memories.

"We're all going to die," she said finally, to the hearing of none but the narration. She sighed and added, muttering, "And I should know."

And she did. She did.

000000

Aline spoke for hours, until her tongue was exhausted and her mouth was dry and parched. Her voice was crackling, barely above a whisper, but that only seemed to excite the shippers more. They were all leaning in, rapt, even the cabin girl.

They hadn't even let her leave the plank.

A part of her was tempted to end the story quickly, so she would be allowed to go and drink, even as she knew that water wasn't part of the Hub, and if she was thirsty, it was only because a storyteller speaking for hours _ought _to be thirsty. Or so she suspected. She had gotten the hang of this universe enough to at least guess.

But it was a small and inconsequential part. Most of Aline was in the thrall of the strange effects of the Writer's Blocks, and that part would never betray the story in the slightest way. And so she spoke.

Or rather, the story spoke through her.

Even if it was just a shipping fanfic.

Which, Aline was thinking as her mouth told the story, was really kind of silly.

Midway through the final buildup to the climactic finale, Aline was interrupted by canon fire.

The spell broke. Her fingers released the Writer's Block, and she was free to cough and breathe.

The piratical shippers leapt up in a chaos.

"No!" a few shrieked.

"Oh, god, I can't go the Hanging Cliffs," one said, breathing erratically. "I _can't, _I'll never survive, oh god, oh god—"

"My spyglass!" the captain demanded.

"What do you need a spyglass for!" the cabin girl shrieked. "They're _right there!"_

The first mate paused to hit the cabin girl with the spyglass before handing it to the captain.

"Shit," the captain informed her crew, looking through it. "We're in for a fight."

"We know," the cabin girl muttered. "It's _right there._ The ship's name is _written on the damn boat."_

"What's going on?" Aline quavered hoarsely.

One of the pirates nearer her squinted in hatred and hissed, "_Zutarans."_

"What are you waiting for, bilge rats!" the captain was shouting. "Man the canons!"

"They're back at the trench," Aline barely prevented herself from saying as the cabin girl protested the use of the verb 'man' in a company made up entirely of women.

The other ship approached, broadside, still firing. The pirates on the other ship looked pretty much the same as the ones on this ship, hooting and hollering and shrieking threats—but would they be any kinder to Aline than the Kataangers? After all, she hadn't told _them_ a story.

And then there was little time to think these things through, because a pitched sea battle was occurring and Aline hadn't the faintest idea how to survive one of those. She hit the deck.

Which was good, because if she hadn't, a cannonball would likely have rendered her midsection significantly emptier.

Aline whimpered and scooted away on her belly, hoping for a lifeboat.

But with all the flying sharp, explosive material in the air, there was no opportunity to lift her head and see what was going on. She moved forward using her elbows.

"When will you upstarts realize you already lost?" she heard the captain shout.

"When you delusionals realize we control most of the sea!" the fainter voice of the other ship's captain snarled back.

"We're not supposed to be fighting anymore!" one of the panicked shippers said. "There's a war on, don't you remember?"

"I will never collude with _Zutarans,"_ the captain announced, and fired a canon.

This is so stupid, Aline thought, sobbing slightly, and because her head was down and she was sobbing, she didn't realize that she had gotten underfoot of the helmswoman—

—who was too busy steering the ship to notice Aline—

—who was then soundly tripped over as the ship pitched suddenly—

—resulting in the helmswoman falling gracelessly still desperately grabbing onto the steering wheel, which spun wildly—

—and since this was not a real sea battle, or a real-approaching sea battle, and was, in fact, a sea battle taking place in a realm of pure imagination, the ship behaved exactly as someone who knew nothing about ships would behave, and summarily veered sharply left, and crashed bow-first right into the port side of the S.S. _Zutara._

Screaming ensued. The ships began to sink.

And that was how our hero singlehandedly won the three-way sea battle of the S. S. _Zutara_, the H.M.S. _Kataang_, and Aline.

"Oh," she said quietly, clinging to a mast to keep her feet as the H.M.S. _Kataang _splintered and broke, "_shit."_

The crew, panicking, was realizing that the ship could not be saved, and so battle options were 1. abandon ship, and 2. take revenge on the responsible party.

Twelve pairs of murderous eyes turned on Aline.

The edge of the ship was all the way over there, but the main mast was right here. Aline climbed for her life.

The enraged pirates followed her up. Her one advantage was that, in their blind animal rage, they stepped on each other and accidentally knocked each other down in their attempt to swarm.

Sobbing, panicking, the adrenaline giving her the core strength to climb she never could have attained in ordinary life, Aline made it to the crow's nest.

And there she was trapped.

The pirates were still coming.

She tugged at hanks of her hair and tried desperately to think as the ship sank further, pitching on its side, an effect which she did not care for at all.

What did she have in her pockets?

The Writer's Blocks.

What else?

She felt sure there was _something_ that could have helped her…but she couldn't remember it quite at the moment.

The Writer's Blocks, she thought desperately, they're _weapons._

The fastest of the pirates were halfway up.

She snatched one up, wheeled her arm back, and threw it downwards with all her might.

It left an inky trail of blackness as it descended. When it landed, the effect was immediate a hole of darkness opened up in the universe, rapidly expanded. The shippers didn't even have time to exclaim in surprise as their ship was eaten up underneath them, and they fell into the darkness. The hole expanded, swallowing the whole ship, and the other ship, its crew lost to oblivion. It ate a little bit of sea, and stopped, encountering nothing new in those directions to destroy.

And then it started to move upwards.

Clinging to a disembodied—disenshipped?—mast, white nothing above, black, expanding nothing below, Aline considered her life.

But not for very long.

She scooted up the remaining distance of the mast, until she was clutching the very top, considering the inky blackness coming for her.

Oh, well, she thought.

The blackness ate the last thing in the vicinity, the mast, and Aline had nothing left to hold, and so, fell.

She closed her eyes and descended almost gracefully into the maw.

And then landed, graceless and unharmed, on the white unground of an unidentified, unremarkable section of Hub.

Aline rubbed the bridge of her nose. "This shit again," she muttered.


End file.
